POLICY BRIEF Conclusion and recommendations South Africa is duty-bound under its constitutional and international obligations to respect human rights. Policing and security equipment that facilitates torture or other forms of ill treatment should be prohibited, or controlled as appropriate. Prohibiting and/or exercising restraint in the transfer and trade of equipment that may lead to humanrights violations would honour these obligations. The following recommendations should be considered: 1 Body-worn electric shock devices should be prohibited for import and export. The use of body-worn electric shock devices is inherently degrading to the dignity of the person. Activation of such devices inflicts severe pain, which constitutes unwarranted and disproportionate force, amounting to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Even when such devices are worn but not activated, they still constitute illtreatment, as they leave the wearer in constant fear of pain while they are worn. They do not meet a legitimate lawenforcement objective that cannot be effectively achieved with safer, less abusive alternatives. South Africa should take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent the use of body-worn electric shock devices, remove and destroy them at the earliest practicable time, and replace them with humane types of restraints. 2 Hand-held direct contact electric shock devices should be prohibited for import and export. Stun shields, stun batons and stun guns are prone to abuse and have no law-enforcement purpose that cannot be achieved through safer means. Government should take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent the manufacture of and trade in hand-held direct contact electric shock devices in South Africa. Wired projectile shock weapons should be strictly regulated along with other types of firearms. An application and licensing process of the sort that firearms are subject to should also be implemented for the import and export of projectile electric shock weapons. Other types of law-enforcement equipment that have no other purpose than to facilitate torture or ill-treatment, such as weighted leg irons, thumb cuffs and sjamboks, should also be prohibited for import and export. 3 A control mechanism should be implemented that targets end users of policing and security equipment of the type that could be used for torture or other ill-treatment. This would be similar to the current system overseen by the NCACC to ensure that South Africa’s arms trade and transfer policies conform to internationally accepted practices. This would require the intended transfer of relevant devices to be suspended or halted where there is evidence that their use could lead to repression, including the systematic violation or suppression of human rights. South Africa’s International Trade Administration Commission may be another vehicle to better regulate the import or export of electric shock security equipment. 6 MANUFACTURING TORTURE?: SOUTH AFRICA’S TRADE IN ELECTRIC SHOCK EQUIPMENT