PNG police beat, rape children, says rights report

By Michael Perry

SYDNEY (Reuters) – Papua New Guinea police are engaging in
brutal beatings, rape and torture of children and risk
spreading HIV/AIDS in the South Pacific island nation, New
York-based Human Rights Watch said in a report on Thursday.

The 124-page report details an “epidemic of police
brutality against children” who are arrested or detained by a
police force riddled with corruption, low morale and poor
resources.

“Boys and girls report being shot, knifed, kicked, beaten
by gun butts, iron bars, wooden batons, fists, rubber hoses and
chairs and being forced to chew and swallow condoms,” said the
report, the first by the human rights group on PNG.

“Eyewitnesses describe pack (gang) rapes in police
stations, vehicles, barracks and other locations,” it said.

An internal review of PNG police in March found rampant
corruption in the force, with police involved in executions and
the burning of villages as pay-back.

Zama Coursen-Neff, author of the Human Rights Watch report,
told Reuters a police culture of violence against children in
PNG was among the worst in the developing world.

“Extreme violence is business as usual for the Papua New
Guinea police,” Coursen-Neff said in Sydney.

Police Minister Bire Kimisopa said police were determined
to stamp it out the abuse, which was well-known and widespread.

“I am aware of instances of female offenders in custody
being raped. That’s something we’re not proud of, that’s
something we need to eradicate within the PNG police force
now,” Kimisopa told Australian Broadcasting Corp radio in Port
Moresby.

LINE-UP SEX

The report said beatings are so routine that officers make
little effort to hide the violence and sometimes force young
boys to fight naked or have anal sex.

“Most policemen on night duties use the women and girls
kept in custody for sex,” an unidentified police officer in
PNG’s Eastern Highlands told researchers for the report.

Gang rapes are described by police as “line-up sex” but the
rapes are rarely reported because the girls are too afraid and
feel ashamed.

“They never take us to the station and charge us. They take
us to the bushes and forcefully have sex with us,” said a
19-year-old woman from Goroka in PNG’s rugged Highlands.

Sex workers, some as young as 12, homosexual boys and
street vendors were also targeted by police for sexual abuse or
beatings. Homosexuality is illegal in PNG.

The report said police were spreading HIV/AIDS by not only
sexually abusing young girls and sex workers but also by
beating those who carry condoms, including health workers
promoting safe sex. In one case they forced prostitutes to
swallow condoms.

PNG’s HIV/AIDS problem is on par with Thailand, Cambodia
and Myanmar and many health workers fear an African-style
epidemic.

At least 80,000 PNG people have HIV, half of them women.
Within five years, officials predict at least 13 percent of the
5.5 million population, or some 715,000, may be HIV positive.

Australian police are trying to help combat growing crime
and violence but their efforts were hampered earlier this year
by an argument over immunity from prosecution.

Human Rights Watch called on Australia, PNG’s biggest aid
donor, to also promote human rights among PNG’s police.