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Thursday March 4 1:57 AM ET
U.S. Condemned For Sex Abuse Of Women Prisoners
By Astrid Zweynert
LONDON (Reuters) - Women prisoners in the United States are subjected to
serious sexual abuse, including
rape and being sold as ``sex slaves'' to male inmates, Amnesty
International said Thursday.
In a wide-ranging report the human rights organization said male guards
often supervised naked women
prisoners and searched them in ways involving contact with their breasts
and genitalia.
The authorities' response to complaints was inadequate, leaving the victims
with ``no voice,'' and often the
perpetrators were not brought to justice, the report said.
``Women in prison have been sentenced to be deprived of their liberty, not
to be subjected to sexual abuse,''
Fiona Weir, Amnesty's UK Campaigns director, said at a news conference.
``The U.S. is a country that prides itself on its constitution and often
draws attention to human rights abuses in
other countries. What we want to achieve is a change in policy.''
The underlying cause of the problem is the large number of male guards in
American women's prisons and
their unrestricted access to women's cells, Amnesty said.
While many Western nations follow United Nations standards that female
prisoners should only be closely
supervised by women, male guards in U.S. prisons may watch over a woman
even when she is dressing,
showering or using the toilet.
A survey of 40 U.S. prisons found in 1997 that 41 percent of guards in
women's prisons were male, with larger
proportions in Kansas, California and Idaho.
``The U.S. must get in step with international standards and stop men
guarding women prisoners,'' Weir said.
Many of the violations described in the report are illegal under U.S. law.
But practices such body searches by
male guards are legitimate and leave women open to sexual abuse, like
touching their breasts and genital areas.
Often female prisoners find it difficult to stop unlawful conduct by guards
or to have a perpetrator brought to
justice, Amnesty said, citing the case of a prisoner named Robin Lucas.
Lucas filed a lawsuit against U.S.
authorities in 1996, saying she was raped, sodomized and made into a sex
slave by guards who ``sold'' access to
her cell to male inmates in a federal prison in Dublin, California.
The case, filed with two fellow female prisoners, was settled out of court
and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons agreed
to institute significant reforms. It paid the women $500,000 to partially
compensate them for their ordeal.
``The case showed a typical pattern -- that no one gets prosecuted,'' said
Silvia Casale, an independent prisons
expert.
