An independent fact-finder for the United Nations has said sexual misconduct
by prison guards is common in women's prisons in the United States.
The fact-finder, or special investigator for violence against women, issued her
report yesterday to the U.N. Human Rights Commission, which is meeting in
Geneva for six weeks to examine rights violations around the world.
Since the session began on March 22, the United States has found its human
rights record being scrutinized, and sometimes criticized, particularly on
accusations of police brutality, ill treatment of detained women seeking asylum
and the use of capital punishment, especially for those who committed their
crimes before the age of 18.
The investigator, Radhika Coomaraswamy of Sri Lanka, added sexual
misconduct and the ``cruel'' use of shackles in women's prisons to the list,
based on her visits last June to state and federal prisons in six states and
Washington, D.C.
Coomaraswamy, a lawyer who operates independently of the U.N. Human
Rights Office, which appointed her, said she made the visits after receiving
``serious allegations of sexual misconduct by male corrections officers.''
In some prisons, she said she was told that ``at least two-thirds of the female
inmates have been sexually or physically abused.''
Rape, Coomaraswamy said in her report, was a ``fairly rare phenomenon.''
More frequent, she added, was ``sex in return for favors, or consensual sex.''
In addition, she said she found ``sanctioned sexual harassment'' to be
prevalent, and described such incidents as ``women being pat- frisked by men
and monitored in their rooms and in the showers by male corrections officers.''
Coomaraswamy took testimony from 44 women in custody and 10
corrections officers while visiting prisons in California, Connecticut, Georgia,
Minnesota, New Jersey and New York.
She noted in her report that, according to Justice Department statistics, the
United States has the largest number of prisoners of any nation in the world,
with more than 43,000 women in custody. These women, she said, were most
often poor and black and were often unwittingly involved in drug trafficking.
Coomaraswamy called for an end to the use of leg irons and chains. Their use
``violates international standards and may be said to constitute cruel and
unusual practices,'' she asserted, adding that there were ``large-scale
violations'' in prisons in the United States.
Women who are refugees or seeking asylum have been ``in many cases
shackled at the airport even when there is no criminal sanction against them,''
Coomaraswamy said.
``Women in labor are shackled during transport to a hospital and soon after
the baby is born,'' she said, in discussing the case of a 26-year-old Virginia
woman who was a first-time offender. In another case, she said shackles
``were kept on even during delivery.''
Conditions in women's prisons varied substantially, and Coomaraswamy urged
that minimum standards be adopted to conform with U.S. obligations under
international treaties guaranteeing human rights.
In addition, she said, states should criminalize sexual misconduct between staff
members and inmates.
