Colonial Security Dogs

As indigenous people were forming protest movements for independence from European colonial masters, there was something else going on that disturbed many.

Because of segregation laws, white rulers lived in the leafy suburbs of the cities with watchmen and big, savage, male dogs to guard their lucrative properties. Indigenous people lived in squalor near city centres or inner cities. The men went to work for pittance while their wives stayed at home.

People were assigned small houses, some ten feet by ten feet, regardless of family size. Moreover, houses typically did not contain basic amenities such as indoor plumbing, and therefore no bathroom and laundry facilities. These were instead available communally, except in a few cases whereby the man of the house held a supervisory post.

Besides political confrontation in relation to seeking independence from colonial masters, there was strife brewing between some foreigners and indigenous people living in the low-income areas described above.

In one particular area, lived people who worked menial jobs such as messengers, cleaners, drivers, watchmen, clerks, gardeners and houseboys. The men left their families early every morning, except on Sundays, to go to work in government and city council offices and elsewhere and some returned home for lunch, if distances to and from work allowed.

Most women were not employed, but stayed at home to take care of their younger children and do house chores, while older children went to school. Moreover, many women were not educated because boys, who were to become sole or primary breadwinners, were deemed more eligible for formal education that would culminate in careers.

The neighbourhood was usually teeming with activity during the day, as children played outside and women cleaned inside and outside their houses or washed dishes and clothes. In the afternoons, after housework was done, women sat under trees braiding hair, sewing, crocheting, knitting or preparing vegetables and grains for dinner.

In this neighbourhood, there began to appear three, well-dressed, indigenous men carrying brief-cases full of gifts such as perfumes, jewellery, lotions, purses, handbags, scarves, stockings, watches, brassieres, belts and other trinkets that women like. These men were typically inebriated, given their unsteady walk and slurred speech.

The men were paid by the colonial masters to lure the unsuspecting women away from their homes to the suburbs in taxicabs, while their husbands were at work. The women had not the slightest inkling of the horror that awaited them.

In luxurious properties in the suburbs, women were forcibly tied by their hands and feet to the four corners of beds. They lay on their backs spread out, as the ferocious, sex-starved male guard dogs that accompanied watchmen on colonial properties were set on them! The women screamed and shouted themselves hoarse, to no avail.

Their abductors waited outside for the job to be done before taking the women back to their ghetto-like neighbourhood. That was the cost exacted for accepting the gifts the women had received beforehand.

How demeaning! It was as if the women were biological substances devoid of any dignity or honour, and therefore not worthy of any respect or moral consideration. How degrading for the mind, body and soul, both for those victimized and those who orchestrated such acts!

The women came home psychologically broken, sick and disgusted. Regret for taking the gifts was all they could speak of, but it was too late. The damage had already been done. People in their communities were livid when they heard about their ordeals.

The women’s health was compromised for some time, and some never fully recovered psychologically.

Whenever the well-dressed abductors made fresh attempts on unwitting women, they were beaten mercilessly by adults, stoned by children, and chased away. They would therefore move to new areas or reappear again after some months.

The abductors’ stake was in getting paid to feed their addiction to intoxicants and to supply their basic needs, not to mention the pressure of ensuring the guard dogs were satisfied sexually. The police never appeared in the neighbourhood to investigate these criminal occurrences.

This went on for years until independence from overt colonial rule was established. The abductors disappeared for good after independence as leadership had changed, and such atrocities would not be tolerated.

In addition, some of the dog owners who had lived in the suburbs returned to their countries of birth, and those who remained, changed their ways for fear of reprisal from citizens of the new state. The matter was simply forgotten over time after having been swept under the rug. Justice was never served.