Abstract
It was midday when we arrived at Cleveland police station. The station is situated south of the city in an industrial area where light manufacturing industries and motor vehicle dealerships are interspersed with blue-collar residences. Two flags fluttered lightly in the winter breeze at the police station’s unmanned gates: one South Africa’s national flag, and the other the South African police flag. A single boom gate with a makeshift wooden guardhouse marked the station’s entrance, which, like most South African Police Stations, was sprinkled with the standard brown brick architecture, a faded red tin roof with a blue gutter system skirting the buildings. Police stations always evoke an irrational sense of foreboding for me, so as we entered the police grounds, I was glad I was not alone. I was there with two other volunteers who worked for a human rights organization. At the very least, I thought to myself, if something happened to me at the police station, someone would know about it.
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Notes
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© 2013 Caroline Wanjiku Kihato
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Kihato, C.W. (2013). The Station, Camp, and Refugee: Xenophobic Violence and the City. In: Migrant Women of Johannesburg. Africa Connects. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137299970_5
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