Mozambique: NGO denounces threat to shelve Maputo prison sexual abuse case

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Mozambique: NGO denounces threat to shelve Maputo prison sexual abuse case

7:00 CAT | 10 Jul 2023

File photo: Lusa

The Mozambican non-governmental organisation (NGO) Centro de Integridade Pública warned on Sunday of attempts to shelve the case linked to the alleged network of sexual exploitation of inmates in Maputo prison, two years after complaints.

“A week ago, we received information from the lawyer who is in front of the process reporting that there has been an attempt to shelve the process,” Egas Jossai, a researcher at the Centre for Public Integrity (CIP), an organisation that revealed the case in mid-2021, told Lusa in an interview.

The CIP investigation denounced the existence of an alleged prostitution network in which prison guards from the Special Penitentiary Establishment for Women in Maputo forced inmates to leave jail to prostitute themselves.

After the denunciation, the ministry of justice created a commission of enquiry, which concluded that there was sexual abuse of inmates by prison guards and “external people”, but the cases occurred inside the prison establishment.

Although a total of 40 prison staff are facing criminal charges and the direction of the establishment has been replaced, the IPC warned of alleged attempts to dismiss the case, noting that although the government has placed only women to do security in the women’s pavilions, other cases of human rights violations may be taking place.

“Exploitation was not only occurring externally, the guards themselves were abusing female inmates. We have no way of knowing now if this does not continue to happen inside the prison, we only know that outside the prison, this does not happen anymore,” stated the CIP researcher.

Lusa tried unsuccessfully to obtain clarification from Mozambique’s ministry of justice.

In the final report of the commission set up by the government to investigate the case, it was concluded that sexual abuse in prison was practised by prison guards and by “external people” who entered the prison at parties held at the weekend or on holidays, with the complacency of senior prison officials.

“In other cases, officers demanded sex in exchange for food, drugs or promises of privileged treatment,” the document submitted two years ago added.

The report also said that inmates reported several cases where they were forced to have abortions after relations with prison guards, some of which the commission described as “apparently consensual” although based on threats.

“The majority of inmates became pregnant more than once and were forced to have abortions, resorting to the services of the nurses assigned to the prison establishment,” reported the document, which suggested a specific legal instrument to penalise guards who engage with inmates.

According to data provided in July 2021, the Special Penitentiary Establishment for Women in Maputo housed a total of 96 inmates in eight cells, with a capacity of 20 people each.

The case aroused the indignation of various sectors of Mozambican society, and a criminal complaint against the management of the prison was submitted to the Attorney General’s Office by 17 women’s rights organisations.

Source: Lusa