I think the key line is this: "They are, they say, approached rude and aggressive by the Tourist Police. In Sosúa it is almost impossible for a woman to walk the streets safely alone."
I see chicas walking the streets alone all the time in the day time. I think that what the police are trying to do is to stop woman from hanging around in darkened areas where they may try to pickpocket innocent tourists who may have had a lot to drink. Now it is possible that the police are going overboard and arresting some innocent women going home from work, or female Dominican visitors going about their business, but as I said before I see girls like a couple of Haitianas I know, Judy and her friend Becca out on Pedro Clissante every night, and nobody is arresting them. Anyway, I will ask around and see if anyone knows anything about these mass arrests. I can't imagine that something like that can go on in Sosua without a lot of people knowing about it, seeing the arrests, or knowing girls who have been arrested.
OK, I have talked to a guy who has seen some of this going on, but not dozens every night. He thinks it is more around the end of the month that the cops are just grabbing girls at night and putting them in a wagon and taking them to the police station. If they have money, then they just take the money, and if they don't have money they make them sleep on the floor of the police station for the night. So basically it seems like it may just be a form of organized robbery or police gangsterism. The local advertising magazine was reporting the other day that the UK ambassador to the DR had complained a large British company had recently left the DR because it was being extorted by Dominican officials, so that is about par for the course.
