Police making our profession insecure, say bar dancers
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KATHMANDU, DEC 21 -
Shreesti Rana Magar (name changed) says she is proud to be a dancer. However, the 26-year-old Thamel based bar trouper finds her profession unsafe despite round-the-clock police patrol in the Capital’s tourist hot spot. To her, police—the protectors of people—themselves are “predators”.
During her six-year long dancing career, she has braved several arrests and alleged ill-treatments meted out by police “for no reasons”. When police many a time arrest dancers from Thamel bars during night time, she says, the owners flee the scene and it is the workers who get into trouble.
Magar is among hundreds of dancers who face harassment and violence at the hands of police personnel, according to a study carried out by Women Forum for Women in Nepal (WFWN). Their woes alone account for over 50 percent of the total cases of violence against the women working in the entertainment sector.
“Police arrest and torture us physically and mentally for no reason,” says Magar. “They use indecent languages with us and often try to sexually harass us.”
Another professional bar dancer says it is the owners who should be held responsible for opening their bars till late night. “We have no other alternative than obeying the owners’ orders or else we will be kicked out,” says Sahana Rai. Magar and Rai are just two examples. Out of 393 cases of violence faced by women dancers, over 50 percent were perpetrated by police officials, the report reveals. Owners, customers and husbands or male partners of the workers are the other perpetrators identified by the study. According to government records, the entertainment sector is the major source of livelihood of about 50,000 women workers in the Valley.
“The police themselves are one of their main clients and when they do not get satisfied with the service they raid and arrest the women workers,” said Srijana Pun, programme coordinator at WFWN. “In some cases, police are also found to have arrested the women workers for declining to pay bribe.”
Police officers, however, outright refute such a claim. “Many top police officers are well educated and they treat the working women with kid gloves. We cannot generalise this issue based on few exceptions,” says Inspector Tapan Dahal.
Posted on: 2011-12-21 08:32
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