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Towards the Effective Protection of LGBTI Persons Deprived of Liberty
who practiced sex work outside of prison may be compelled to continue doing so within the prison environment.
Sexual health and the prevention of STIs should be an integral part
of healthcare provision in prisons. Public health should take precedence over alleged security and/or moral concerns and authorities
should ensure that detainees have access to information about safe
sex and sexual health in a variety of languages, and that condoms
or other prophylactics are available to detainees. In female prisons,
similar protection should be made available, including dental dams
and information specific to the needs of detainees. In contexts where same-sex relationships are criminalised, making condoms or
other prophylactics available may be perceived as tantamount to
promoting conducts deemed as offenses. Nevertheless, this does
not preclude authorities’ obligation to ensure that public health
considerations prevail at all times.
In the absence of safe-sex materials, detainees may use improvised condom alternatives that can endanger their health. Condoms
and other protective materials should be made available without
exposing or “outing” detainees. When detainees are obliged to make
a request to healthcare staff in order to obtain condoms or other
prophylactics, they may in fact be dissuaded from doing so, as in
prisons men who have sex with men frequently do not identify as
gay. Confidential STI testing and counselling services should also be
made available.
In some contexts, detainees deemed to be vulnerable are segregated form the rest of the prison population and housed together with
HIV-positive inmates, purportedly as a means to control the spread
of HIV. This practice only further stigmatise those populations.
Good practice
Access to information about sexually transmitted
diseases and condoms in prison
In 2016, a decree on epidemics entered into force in Switzerland72, which
72
Ordonnance sur la lutte contre les maladies transmissibles de l’homme (Ordonnance sur les épidémies, OEp) du 29 avril 2015 (Etat le 1er janvier 2016), Art. 30.
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