A blitz on gay-bashing in the South African Police Services is under way. Behind it are Gay Pride marchers — and the police force itself. Mark Gevisser reports
POLICE recruits will soon go through a “diversity” programme to train them in sexual orientation awareness.
The South African Police Services career-planning department is currently developing a pilot programme of lectures which will be presented to new recruits next year. Along with racism and sexism, the programme deals with sexual orientation.
But, notes programme planner Guiliana Nusca, “our work as trainers cannot be effective unless there is clear anti-discrimination policy and codes of conduct. Police officers need to know that disciplinary action will be taken against them if they are caught discriminating against gays and lesbians in any way.”
This weekend Lesbian and Gay Pride marchers intend presenting a memorandum to the PWV’s Ministry of Safety and Security to deal with the issue: the memorandum will call for a complete overhaul of the way the police force deals with homosexuality. Signed by 20 organisations, it will also be given to the responsible MECs in the other eight provinces and to National Minister of Safety and Security Sydney Mufamadi. The memorandum includes the following recommendations:
* The establishment of a formal police liaison to the gay community;
* The institution of an “anti-hate crimes” Act that includes gay-bashing;
* A moratorium on police enforcement of anti-gay laws which are prohibited by sections of the new constitution;
* An affirmative action campaign to recruit openly gay officers into the police force;
* Specialised gay-sensitive training for new recruits;
* A non-discriminatory code of conduct to be taken on by all police officers; and
* The end to all discrimination against lesbian and gay police officers.
Mufamadi’s spokesman, Craig Kotze, responds that “once the memorandum is received, attention will be given to the issues. Government and this ministry regard any form of sexual discrimination as anathema and gay people are of course full and integral members of the community. Where attitudes within SAPS exist which contradict these principles, they must be attended to.”
In the memorandum, drafted by lawyer Kevan Botha, there are some startling examples of this anti-gay ethos, from the demotion of gay police officers and charges of police gay-bashing, to a 1993 letter from police commissioner General Johan van der Merwe in which he states that “the South African Police strongly disapproves of homosexuality, lesbianism, as well as immoral behaviour, promiscuity, extra-marital relationships and living together out of wedlock”.
The memorandum also cites the research of two Pretoria University professors, who found that 25 percent of all gay South Africans have been subjected to non-physical (verbal) abuse by police officers, and four percent of all gay South Africans have been subjected to physical abuse by police officers. Given these statistics, it is not surprising that, according to this research, 91 percent of all gay people in South Africa do not report victimisation.
Senior echelons of the force have begun to acknowledge these problems. Taking the lead has been PWV MEC for Safety and Security Jessie Duarte, who has offered herself as a patron of the Gay and Lesbian Organisation of the Witwatersrand and pledged to end anti-gay discrimination in the police force.