Rape, Torture and Humiliation in Women's Prisons: A Global State of Crisis

By Lys Anzia, Women News Network. Posted September 23, 2008.

"The strategy used in women's prisons now is one of humiliation rather than rehabilitation," said Jane Evelyn Atwood in her 2007 Amnesty International video documentary, "Too Much Time." For nine years, Atwood photographed and documented the conditions for women in 40 women's prisons worldwide including the US, Europe and Eastern Europe.

In numerous locations around the world the plight of women in prison is going unheeded.

Conditions of improper touching by persons of authority, sanctioned sexual harassment, unnecessary strip searches, lack of proper medical attention or proper food exists in numerous global prison locations. In addition to this, psychological coercion and/or threats of sexual assault by persons in authority create a constant, unending and intense universal pressure on many incarcerated women.

"Women in prisons all around the world are at risk of rape, sexual assault and torture," said a recent June 2008, Quaker UN Office -- Human Rights and Refugees Publications report.

In some of the most grueling prisons in the world, women in Afghanistan are commonly punished for "moral crimes." These crimes of morality are considered crimes against the dignity of the family. Many of the crimes include adultery, running away from a husband after abuse, having a relationship without being married or refusal to marry. Women who have made public charges of rape have also been known to have been placed in detention at the same time only one wing away from their assailant. Elopement with someone else not chosen by the family after a dowry has been paid is another legal reason for arrest.

The unheated women's section in the crumbling penal facility known as Pul-e-Charkhi, in the capital city of Kabul, was a place where women were often denied their most common basic needs. Known for its extreme torture and 1970s war atrocities, women and their children whe were housed at Pul-e-Charkhi were kept together in crowded unlit, often unsanitary rooms. Medical treatment and proper nutrition was almost non-existent. Conditions of severe hardship in the prison, including sexual assault with fear of reprisal, has caused numerous women loss of all personal dignity. In many instances the extreme conditions at Pul-e-Charkhi encouraged numerous suicide attempts among women prisoners.

In April 2008, women prisoners were moved from Pul-e-Charkhi to a new facility in Kabul. Even though the walls are new, the women are still only given one hour of sunlight each day. Continuing administrative denials in the mismanagement of Afghanistan prisons points to a need for vast improvement.

The desire to direct prisons to approve and manage facilities that exist strictly "for punishment only" crushes any future hope for programs that might focus on rehabilitation.

Afghan women prisoners, suffering from extreme poverty and lack of education, are trapped along with their children inside Afghanistan's system of criminal jurisprudence. Without fair and equal representation, or any legal recourse to their needs, women flounder as they stay locked up for years under charges that would not stand up one day in most legal courts systems around the world.

In Pakistan, "The number of women in prison at any moment...soared from as few as 70 in 1980 to as many as 4,500 in 1990," said Human Rights Watch in a 1999 report. Women in Pakistan are charged under the "Hudood Ordinances," ordinances enacted in Pakistan in 1979 after General Zia-ul-Haq brought a decade of military rule to the country.

Under the current Pakistan Penal Code, women can be charged for a variety of crimes relating to extra-marital sex, or "zina." Misrepresentations of rape crimes under the laws of zina have caused women in prison in Pakistan to be charged for numerous crimes they have not instigated or caused.

Many women in prison in Pakistan who have alleged they have been raped have been charged themselves under "Tazir" law if the rape cannot be prosecuted. Punishment under Tazir law can include incarceration up to twenty-five years, a fine and 20 lashes with a whip. Human Rights Watch, along with many women's rights activist groups inside Pakistan have been appealing for years for these Hudood Ordinances to be repealed and replaced with just and fair legislation.

See more stories tagged with: torture, rape, violence against women, sexual assault, prisons

Lys Anzia is the director of Women News Network, an award-winning playwright, (2007) Pushcart Prize nominee and humanitarian journalist.

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