FORTY SIX women were arrested over the weekend on suspicion of loitering with the intent to engage in prostitution in the central business district of Windhoek.
The arrests follow a pilot operation to test the effectiveness of police foot patrols instead of patrolling in vehicles. This operation was conducted by the police, other law enforcement agencies as well as members of the Women and Men Network against Crime and various neighbourhood watch groups.
Inspector Christine van Dunem Dafonsech, head of the Khomas regional police community affairs in Windhoek, said the instructions came from the top echelon of the force to target prostitution and illegal immigrants.
‘We started with prostitutes in the central business district, as it (prostitution) is illegal in Namibia,’ she stated.
The 46 women, including three girls aged between 15 and 17, were apprehended in the vicinity of a German private school and a local shopping centre. The schoolgirls were returned to the hostel where they reside. Van Dunem Dafonsech expressed disappointment that parents trust schools and hostel management to take care of their children, yet these girls managed to sneak out of the hostel.
Most of the arrested women admitted to the police that they were on the street looking for ‘customers’. All of them were arrested at known prostitution ‘hotspots’ behind the Gustav Voigts Centre, Ausspannplatz area and close to the Government Office Park.
Seven of them are Namibians while the rest are from Zimbabwe, Zambia, Tanzania and Botswana.
Many of them have been arrested and deported before, but returned to the streets of Windhoek.
This baffled Van Dunem Dafonsech, who said it implies incompetent border control systems and law enforcement agencies as well as corruption.
‘I do not know if it’s us, including me, not doing our work, or maybe it is immigration. How do they repeatedly enter Namibia?’, she asked rhetorically.
The officer said immigration is already involved with the operation, and the suspects are expected to be deported in due course. The police will not rest until the streets of Windhoek are cleared of illegal immigrants and those conducting illegal and immoral activities, she added.
The police will be going for bogus pastors next, Van Dunem Dafonsech noted.
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