{Zimbabwe’s Constitutional Court has barred police from arresting sex workers for loitering saying it violated their rights. }
The court made the ruling after nine women from the capital Harare challenged their arrests during a police raid of night clubs in March last year.
On Wednesday, the country’s highest court ordered a halt to the women’s prosecution.
The woman argued that they could not be arrested after merely being found on the street corners or central business district at night.
They argued the crime of soliciting required allegations of an act and an accomplice.
The crimes
Lawyers and women’s groups hailed the ruling as a big step towards gender equality.
“The ruling is a very important development as the state has now conceded that it cannot arrest women arbitrarily for being in some places at certain hours alone,” said Tawanda Zhuwara, one of the lawyers who represented the nine women.
“In the past women were simply arrested in what we can say was profiling without really establishing the facts of the crimes alleged.”
Commercial sex work is illegal in Zimbabwe, but thousands of women have resorted to the trade due to the worsening economic situation.
Some Zimbabwean women resort to skipping the border to neighbouring countries such as South Africa, Botswana and Zambia where they engage in commercial sex work.
{{Africa Review}}
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