Driving through Port-au-Prince's Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp, the first thing I notice is how massive and congested it is. After that, the smell and the heat hit me. I had come to the camp to interview a young rape survivor, as part of a Human Rights Watch mission to Haiti to investigate sexual and other violence against women in the aftermath of the earthquake. Sexual violence often increases in emergencies, when normal structures have broken down and women struggle to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter and hygiene.
At least 10 percent of the world's population is believed to live with a disability. Of those, let's say that half - 340 million - are women. That's roughly the size of the entire population of the US and Canada combined.
Like torture victims, patients in severe pain told us that all they had wanted was for the pain to stop. Many torture victims do or say anything they think might stop the torture. Patients with untreated pain told us that they had contemplated suicide, told friends and relatives that they wanted to die, and prayed for death.
They had been beaten, whipped, shocked with electric batons and even raped. Food was scarce and forced labor common. Cambodians who have spent time in the country's drug detention centers described these outrageous abuses and horrible conditions, and more.
So-called rehabilitation centres in Cambodia and elsewhere in Asia are in reality prisons where harsh and ineffective measures are used to break the hold of drugs
Usually, when one thinks of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, prisoners--not patients-- come to mind. The mistreatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prison involved medically trained individuals participating in so-called "biscuit" or "behavioral science consultation teams," but we rarely hear about ill-treatment by health providers as part of more routine medical practice.
Los Angeles was poised to become a national model for delivering justice to rape victims last year. The City approved a plan and funding to test the backlog of more than 7,000 sets of untested physical evidence from rape cases for DNA matches. Then came last week’s announcement that the city would not be hiring the additional crime lab personnel necessary to clear this backlog and to test every future booked set of evidence, known as a rape kit.
The announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Health that they intend to improve medical care in drug detention centers is an important acknowledgment of a problem; but the solution is wrong. Rather than improve conditions within drug detention centers, these centers should be shut down. In their place, China should develop and expand voluntary, community-based outpatient treatment programs that respect human rights and are consistent with international standards.
The start of the New Year brought the news that the United States and South Korea had ended their travel bans against visitors living with HIV/AIDS. So surely we are celebrating the progress in these two countries, right? Not entirely.
One little-known side effect of the prison population explosion has been a sharp increase in the number of elderly people behind bars. According to the Justice Department, in 1980 the United States had about 9,500 prisoners age 55 and older; by 2008, the number had increased tenfold, to 94,800. That same year, the number of prisoners 50 and older was just shy of 200,000 -- about the size of the entire U.S. prison population in the early 1970s.
Driving through Port-au-Prince's Parc Jean Marie Vincent camp, the first thing I notice is how massive and congested it is. After that, the smell and the heat hit me. I had come to the camp to interview a young rape survivor, as part of a Human Rights Watch mission to Haiti to investigate sexual and other violence against women in the aftermath of the earthquake. Sexual violence often increases in emergencies, when normal structures have broken down and women struggle to meet basic needs for food, water, shelter and hygiene.
At least 10 percent of the world's population is believed to live with a disability. Of those, let's say that half - 340 million - are women. That's roughly the size of the entire population of the US and Canada combined.
Like torture victims, patients in severe pain told us that all they had wanted was for the pain to stop. Many torture victims do or say anything they think might stop the torture. Patients with untreated pain told us that they had contemplated suicide, told friends and relatives that they wanted to die, and prayed for death.
They had been beaten, whipped, shocked with electric batons and even raped. Food was scarce and forced labor common. Cambodians who have spent time in the country's drug detention centers described these outrageous abuses and horrible conditions, and more.
So-called rehabilitation centres in Cambodia and elsewhere in Asia are in reality prisons where harsh and ineffective measures are used to break the hold of drugs
Usually, when one thinks of torture or cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment, prisoners--not patients-- come to mind. The mistreatment of detainees in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo prison involved medically trained individuals participating in so-called "biscuit" or "behavioral science consultation teams," but we rarely hear about ill-treatment by health providers as part of more routine medical practice.
Los Angeles was poised to become a national model for delivering justice to rape victims last year. The City approved a plan and funding to test the backlog of more than 7,000 sets of untested physical evidence from rape cases for DNA matches. Then came last week’s announcement that the city would not be hiring the additional crime lab personnel necessary to clear this backlog and to test every future booked set of evidence, known as a rape kit.
The announcement by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security and Ministry of Health that they intend to improve medical care in drug detention centers is an important acknowledgment of a problem; but the solution is wrong. Rather than improve conditions within drug detention centers, these centers should be shut down. In their place, China should develop and expand voluntary, community-based outpatient treatment programs that respect human rights and are consistent with international standards.
The start of the New Year brought the news that the United States and South Korea had ended their travel bans against visitors living with HIV/AIDS. So surely we are celebrating the progress in these two countries, right? Not entirely.
One little-known side effect of the prison population explosion has been a sharp increase in the number of elderly people behind bars. According to the Justice Department, in 1980 the United States had about 9,500 prisoners age 55 and older; by 2008, the number had increased tenfold, to 94,800. That same year, the number of prisoners 50 and older was just shy of 200,000 -- about the size of the entire U.S. prison population in the early 1970s.