The Abuja Federal High Court has said that the invasion of Prostitute house within the Abuja is a bridge of fundamental human right. The judgment delivered on Wednesday declared that the police should pay the arrested prostitute N100,000 each. presiding judge Justice Binta Nyako on Wednesday declared that officials of a security task force acted outside the law when they broke into apartments in Abuja suburbs around 11 p.m, February 2017, to arrest women accused of being prostitutes.
Recalled that task force made up of officials of Abuja Environmental Protection Board, Nigeria Police, and Nigerian Army, were said to have invade the premises of the prostitute arrested them, and continued beating them before the arrival of Mobile court.
The court delivered judgment inline with the fundamental human rights enforcement suit filed by a non-governmental organisation, Lawyers Alert, on behalf of the arrested women.
One Constance Nkwocha and 15 others were the applicants in the suit, while the Nigeria police, the army, Ministry of Federal Capital Territory, and the Abuja Environmental Protection Board were among the respondents.
“I find and hold that the breaking in and arrest of the applicants by the respondents is an infringement of the applicants’ right to privacy as guaranteed by the Constitution,” the court declared.
“The law has laid down process and procedure for effective arrest, law enforcement agents and agencies should ensure at all times to follow the laid down guidelines by the law.”
The court ordered the respondents to pay N100,000 compensation to each of the applicants.
The officials of the task force indecently searched the women and disposed them of their money when they raided their apartments, Lawyers Alert said.
The NGO said the women were tortured and detained while waiting for a mobile court judge “who will try them for a criminal offence they did not know about”.
“It is worth recalling that this is not the first time the Joint Task Force had come to arrest, detain and release them. It has always been the practice.
“The women were informed that their arrest owed to their commercial sex work. The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory had a few days before the particular raid promised to rid the Nigeria capital city of sex workers,” the organisation said on its website.
It said 52 women were arrested in this particular raid.
Source: Premium Times
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