Female visitors to St Albans Correctional Centre are being forced to strip naked and endure humiliating internal vaginal searches for contraband.
The women say that, over and above a metal detector and pat-down from guards at the prison in Gqeberha, they are being told to take off their clothes, including their underwear, for the degrading search.
Two of the women who spoke out this week said they felt embarrassed and violated, with one — who described it as sexual assault — now considering stopping her visits to her imprisoned father.
The correctional services department, however, says recent attempts by visitors to smuggle contraband into the prison necessitated the invasive searches.
But a human-rights activist says the violation of a person’s dignity in this manner is unacceptable.
Nicole Blignault, who has visited her father — perlemoen king Morne Blignault — for years without incident, said her last visit to him had been the first time she had felt humiliated and violated by guards.
“I have been visiting my father in prison for years and after a while you get used to the process [of being patted down] by the guards.
“But never have I been asked to strip down to have my privates inspected. That is too much,” an angry Blignault said.
Morne, who was sentenced in 2018, is serving a 20-year prison term for running a multimillion-rand perlemoen operation.
Since his incarceration, Blignault had visited him at St Albans most weekends, but the trauma she said she had recently endured had made her question if visiting her father was worth the humiliation.
“I was searched three times, and I was not asked — I was told — to lift up my shirt and pull down my pants and underwear.
“They said they needed to look inside my private parts,” she said.
“I don’t care what their protocols are, this is unacceptable.
“It’s degrading and it’s sexual assault.
“We visit our loved ones only to be embarrassed like this.
“I don’t know if I will ever visit my father again,” Blignault said.
Another woman, who declined to be named for fear that her imprisoned family member would be victimised, said she had endured the exact same treatment as Blignault.
She said it was the first time she had been forced to endure the invasive and embarrassing search process.
Correctional Services spokesperson Nobuntu Gantana confirmed that strict searching protocols had been implemented to prevent contraband from being exchanged between inmates and their visitors.
She said it was standard protocol for anyone entering or leaving a correctional centre — officials included — to be searched by hand-held metal detectors, as well as to undergo a pat-down over his or her clothed body.
“The search must not be conducted in a manner which invades the privacy and undermines the dignity of the person being searched.
“A correctional officer of the same gender as the person being searched must conduct the search, and the search must be conducted in private,” Gantana said.
However, she said the department’s protocols did make allowance for additional measures to be taken to prevent contraband from being smuggled into prisons.
“It is a common practice that contraband is prevented from being smuggled into all correctional facilities in terms of the department’s approved security standards operating procedure.
“This management area has had 23 security incidents where visitors, mostly females, were found in possession of contraband stuffed into condoms and inserted into their private parts to look like sanitary products,” Gantana said.
The Human Rights Institute of SA, however, slammed the invasive searches.
The institute’s gender campaign and advocacy officer, Cathy Kodiemoka, said the violation of a person’s dignity in such a manner was unacceptable.
“Such invasive searches and blatant violations of human rights cannot be tolerated.
“The person affected should take the matter up with the facility’s management, and if they receive no joy then they should open a case with the police.”
Kodiemoka said the matter needed to be reported to the police to investigate the allegations.
“At the very least, such an investigation will bring the matter to the public’s attention and alternative ways of searching visitors could be developed.
“There is equipment available that can scan visitors and reveal any contraband they might be carrying without resorting to such embarrassing and degrading procedures,” Kodiemoka said.
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