Two police officers have been charged with rape allegedly committed inside a police station in Alotau, southeast Papua New Guinea (PNG), but the area’s most senior police officer said that he fears other sexual assaults could have been committed by officers, with victims too afraid to report the attacks.
“I can honestly say that this practice may have been going on for a while,” Milne Bay Provincial Police Commander Peter Barkie told the Guardian. “I’ve heard about it, but since taking office I can only confirm two [alleged] cases, who were charged during my time.”
Barkie said that rapes and sexual assaults are almost never reported to the police, with victims deterred by cultural and social stigma, and an abiding mistrust of the police force.
“One of the main reasons is because these female detainees were ashamed and many were married women who wanted to protect their marriages, [so] none of them came forward,” he said. “That is another reason why none of the women came forward, though there were whispers, I believe they were afraid to come out and lay an official complaint because at that time, people were afraid of the police.”
One assault survivor, who wished to remain anonymous, was detained at the police station for allegedly committing adultery — a crime under PNG law.
The woman was allegedly raped by a police officer earlier this year. Two officers have been charged over the alleged assault.
A Milne Bay resident, who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, said that she believed assaults had been occurring for years and that perpetrators escaped prosecution because rape was seen as a taboo topic in conservative, deeply religious, PNG society.
“No woman would come forward and say she was raped, because sadly, society would look at her differently, they would blame her and even, sometimes, this destroys their marriages, and husbands instead of supporting their wives to seek justice, divorce them out of shame that she was raped,” she said. “A couple of us have tried to get this out, we’ve helped to lay complaints at the Alotau police station, and when there was no response we sent a report down to the police headquarters in Port Moresby, and also sent a report to the police internal investigation unit, but most times, nothing comes out of it.”
Unrelated to alleged offenses in Alotau, PNG Minister for Police Bryan Kramer last month made an extraordinary condemnation of his own force, alleging that it was the most corrupt public agency in the nation, engaged in drug-smuggling, gun-running, land theft and criminal violence.
“I found our police force in complete disarray and riddled with corruption — add to that a rampant culture of police ill-discipline and brutality,” Kramer wrote about his first 15 months as minister.
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