Get to root of police rape of women in cells

The new police administration should quickly swing into action, arrest and bring to book its officers accused of raping married women suspects detained in police cells. This horrible act has provoked raw public emotions and justly so.
The victims have come out in the open and their abusers – the rogue police officers - are known, but they still wear police uniforms and earn salaries from the sweat of the public they have abused. One of the victims, a wife and mother of three children, has had her peaceful family life shuttered. Her marriage has broken down and she lives in hiding with her head downcast in shame and carries an unwanted pregnancy.

And this is not an isolated case as Abim Resident District Commissioner Mpimbaza Hashaka confirms. The officers have extended their indiscipline to school girls and have ruined the future of a young girl, who has now been expelled from school after she was made pregnant by another lustful officer.

As things stand in Abim Town Council, the police have both failed and violated their mandates as spelt out in both the Constitution and the Police (Amendment) Act, 2006.
Both documents demand of police officers to enforce the laws of Uganda to ensure public safety and order. The laws also demand them to protect the life, property and rights of the individual.

But these legal binders have been torn and thrown away by the police officers. These savage acts by uniformed officers; paid by taxpayers to keep law and order and not violate, dishonours the Uganda Police Force.
The police authorities should feel the bubbling rage and pain of Abim residents and act now. They should move to reassure these Ugandans that no one, not even police officers, are above the law. The reassurance by Mr Hashaka that he has ordered investigations into the matter is positive, but not enough to calm the fears of husbands, wives and schoolgirls, and the community. More should be done and now.

The officers in Abim have violated the obligations of police officers that require them not to compromise law enforcement on account of any relationship, patronage or any other influence. Deplorably, in Abim, the police officers have failed to conduct themselves in the most decent and dignified manner at all times as examples for orderliness and law abiding citizens.
This is why the Police Professional Standards Unit should take an immediate interest in these violation of human rights and unprofessional conduct by its officers in Abim. This should make the ordinary Ugandans feel that they too can get justice without recourse to mob action when frustrated.