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.
