The African Centre for Women in Politics (ACWP) has reminded the security personnel engaged in enforcing the government’s lockdown order that their role is not to brutalise and intimidate innocent people.

This follows the circulation of videos on social media in which some security officers were seen brutalising some persons believed to have flouted the lockdown order.

In a statement, ACWP noted that its attention “has been drawn to several worrying videos portraying some Ghanaian security agencies subjecting women to brutalities in their effort to enforce the lockdown order by the President.”

The ACWP continued: “In most of the videos seen are market women who are part of the exempt categories of businesses. A market woman carrying a head pan containing tomatoes for sale at the CMB Market at Accra Central was lashed at her back and was seen painfully crying in the video while lamenting her ordeal.

“Another video was seen of a panicky young girl telling a security officer at the Kwame Nkrumah Circle that she belongs to the exempt category and that she was returning home after going to sell airtime. In that same video, a woman seen narrating to a security personnel that she was returning from supplying provision to customers was asked to step aside for flouting the lockdown order.”

The group, however, indicated that although it appreciates the “contribution of security agencies” in enforcing the lockdown order, it is important to remind the security officers that “their roles do not include brutalisation and intimidation on innocent people.”

It further continued: “As seen in the videos, some of the security officers themselves lack information on which category of businesses are part of the exempt category.  The security officers should be provided with information on the category of businesses that forms part of the exempt businesses.

“The security agencies are reminded that the majority of the 25% women who are illiterate, according to the World Bank in 2020, are market women. As a result, instead of intimidating or brutalising them, they should engage in providing some form of information on the lockdown to these women.”