9.Contact with the outside world 206.Persons deprived of their liberty have the right to receive visits, correspond with their family and friends, and maintain contact with the outside world. Contact with the outside world will facilitate their reintegration upon release. In addition, contact with people from outside the prison can provide a safeguard against acts of torture or ill-treatment. 207.In general, the SPT received few complaints from those interviewed concerning the system for prison visits. One of the most frequent complaints was about the lack of privacy during visits by family members. Another complaint was about the lack of visits for prisoners whose families lived in other cities or countries. 208.At Pedro Juan Caballero Regional Prison, there was a public telephone that did not work. Some prisoners said that the telephone had not been repaired despite repeated requests. The SPT recommends that the prison authorities ensure that each prison has at least two working telephones accessible to persons deprived of their liberty. 209.At both prisons, the SPT noted that some inmates had televisions or radios for personal use. However, these had not been provided by the prisons themselves and were therefore not available to all inmates. 210.At Tacumbú National Prison, the SPT was told that meetings between inmates and their lawyers took place in private, in offices provided for that purpose. 10.Allegations of torture and ill-treatment 211.The SPT heard repeated and consistent accounts from the inmates in the two prisons visited of torture and ill-treatment by prison staff. The information received leads the SPT to conclude that prison staff routinely inflict ill-treatment on prisoners, including when they are asleep, in order to intimidate or punish them, or sometimes for no apparent reason. Only those detainees housed in the sections for women and minors at Pedro Juan Caballero Regional Prison said that they were generally well treated by the prison staff, with the exception of one guard in the minor’s section, who occasionally struck the minors with his hand or truncheon by way of punishment, and a female guard in the women’s section, who repeatedly insulted the female inmates and threatened them with her truncheon in order to intimidate them, but had so far not carried out her threats. 212.At Tacumbú National Prison, the SPT heard repeated and concordant accounts of beatings by the prison staff, either with their truncheons or their fists. Use of the teju ruguai, a kind of leather whip employed as a disciplinary instrument, is said to be common. One technique reported to the SPT, used to extract confessions of homicide or other serious offences, is to order the suspect to strip naked and lie face-down on the floor; the guards then walk over their bodies in their boots until the culprit owns up. One prisoner interviewed in the Tacumbú solitary confinement wing said that one of the guards had put a rifle in his mouth for having tried to escape, gashing his mouth. Another prisoner said that, as a punishment for urinating against a wall, he had been made to stand on his head and had been beaten on his calves and the soles of his feet. 213.At Juan Caballero Regional Prison, the SPT heard consistent accounts of routine beatings by guards. Prisoners identified one guard in particular, who had been transferred from another prison because of previous incidents of torture, as being the most prone to acts of ill-treatment. 214.The SPT also heard allegations of violations committed by inmates against each other at the Tacumbú National Prison, sometimes in front of the guards or with their consent. One prisoner said he had been raped on three occasions, including one in which he had been made to walk around wearing a short skirt, and was then raped by a group of prisoners. The SPT heard consistent accounts of transvestites detained at Tacumbú being frequently obliged to perform sex scenes in the courtyards in front of other inmates and guards, who paid to watch. It was reported that one transvestite died in 2008 as a result of a guard inserting a club into his anus. The SPT reminds the State party that it is responsible for guaranteeing the safety of the persons under its custody. The SPT strongly condemns the episodes of sexual violence described, which constitute a form of torture. 215. The SPT encourages the State party to maintain and step up measures to prevent torture and other ill-treatment, as part of a comprehensive State policy. This work should be accompanied by extensive public awareness campaigns on the prevention of torture and ill-treatment, and information campaigns on how and where to report cases. It further recommends that the State party should undertake to provide human rights training to prison staff. 216. The SPT requests the State party to carry out a prompt and impartial investigation into all allegations of torture and ill-treatment, including sexual violence, in accordance with articles 12 and 13 of the Convention against Torture. In cases where those allegations involve prison staff, the staff members should be suspended from duty for the duration of the trial, and dismissed from the service if they are found guilty. 11.The submission of complaints or appeals as a safeguard against torture and ill-treatment 217.In general, the detainees tended to be largely unaware of the possibility of submitting a complaint or appeal in the event of torture or ill-treatment. The overall attitude was one of resignation and fear of reprisals if they reported ill-treatment, since in general any contact with the prison director was via the guards, who were precisely the ones against whom a complaint might be made. Apart from the lack of regular, unrestricted contact between inmates and their public defenders, the absence of mechanisms for public scrutiny make it difficult to report ill-treatment. 218.The SPT considers that the right of detainees and their lawyers to submit petitions or appeals regarding their treatment to the authorities responsible for the administration of the place of detention and to higher authorities and,