An internal police inquiry has found a John Vorster Square captain guilty of harassing three colleagues. Ferial Haffajee reports
FOR 27-year-old Christine Appelgrein, working for the South African Police Service (SAPS) guaranteed neither safety nor security.
Instead, for more than a year, Appelgrein was sexually harassed by a police captain who also abused two other women clerks based at John Vorster Square police station in Johannesburg.
Appelgrein is one of a growing number of civilians employed by the SAPS. She vets gun licences at a police station to which she was transferred after bringing a complaint against Captain Rudolph Jordaan.
Last week, an internal inquiry – reportedly an unusual event – found Jordaan guilty on three sexual harassment charges. His punishment will be made known early next month.
Appelgrein alleges that sexual harassment of women employees in the SAPSis rife, but believes higher-ranking officers are “un- touchable … If he had been a police officer [of lower rank], they would have fired him.
“I think his rank should be lowered and he should be transferred,” she says, adding: “His life is going on hunky-dory, but my life is never going to be the same again.”
Jordaan now serves at the Hillbrow police station. He was unavailable for comment this week, but is said to be likely to appeal against the decision of the internal disciplinary hearing.
Jordaan denied the harassment charges during the hearing. He said the women who complained about him did not like his style of work, and Appelgrein had lodged the complaint to secure a transfer.
It was not an easy case for Appelgrein. She says many witnesses who were called claimed, “I didn’t see anything,” and the women who did complain feared victimisation.
“There has been lots of interest in the case,” says Lisa Vetten of the Johannesburg-based lobbying group Sexual Harassment Education Project. “Sexual harassment is said to be pretty widespread in the police service. It’s a macho institution and it’s still gender-skewed because men hold most of the senior positions.”
Appelgrein says she told the inquiry the harassment began in February 1994 when she worked at John Vorster Square. “He used to touch my bum, and suddenly it began with my breasts. One day I was sitting behind my computer and working. He rubbed up behind me.
“Then one day I was lying in a colleague’s office. He came in, lay down on top of me and he put his hand under my top.”
Appelgrein says Jordaan would often find excuses to be alone in his office with her. He also took to fondling her breasts when he passed her. The harassment occurred almost daily.
“If I got a rand for every time I said `no’ I would be able to retire,” she says. “I used to shout and nobody would be able to help me. I thought if I spoke about it, people would call me a slut and they would think that I was goedkoop [cheap].”
Appelgrein tried to commit suicide, and later her marriage crumbled. She said she would report Jordaan, but she owed him R200 and he threatened to take her to court for the debt. His trump card was the warning: “Remember who must sign your promotions certificate.”
Appelgrein turned to the Police and Prisons Civil Rights Union, which took up her case. She also persuaded two other women colleagues to lodge complaints against Jordaan.
Criminal charges failed when the attorney general declined to prosecute because the investigation did not yield enough evidence.
“It took the investigating officer five months to get our affidavits together. You see, we’re not permanent members. We’re nothing in the force,” says Appelgrein.
While her complaints have now been upheld by the internal hearing, she has won no friends with the case. She was transferred from John Vorster Square when working there became too difficult. “Everybody was mean to me. They gave me filthy looks. People didn’t want to work with me anymore.”
Appelgrein’s fortunes have turned, though. She is happier at the Johan Coetzee police station near Johannesburg where she now works: her new station commander says the abuse she suffered at John Vorster Square will not happen in his precinct. She is also remarried, although she and her second husband, who is a policeman, still go to counselling because the harassment has left its mark.
Superintendent Strini Govender says the police are aware of sexual harassment, but under-reporting makes it difficult to quantify.
The police know current procedures for investigating such complaints are not watertight. “The SAPS is in the process of finalising its sexual harassment policy, which will equip the service to better deal with cases of this nature,” says Govender.