CAT/OP/C/57/4
homophobic or transphobic bias.15 About 7 per cent of the transgender persons participating
in one study reported that they had been arrested or held in a cell owing to the bias of police
officers,16 a prejudice often reinforced by difficulties deriving from the lack of
identification papers or documents that correspond to their apparent gender. A number of
reports refer to the use of degrading language, contact and treatment during arrest. With
very few exceptions, State officers are not trained to understand the needs of lesbian, gay,
bisexual, transgender and intersex persons and there are no institutional policies and
methods to adequately address self-identification, classification, risk assessment and
placement. That results in violence against such persons and a lack of access to necessary
resources and services, such as physical and mental care.
61.
Both the Special Rapporteur on torture and the Subcommittee have noted that in
detention facilities there is usually a strict hierarchy, and that those at the bottom of the
hierarchy, including lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender persons, typically suffer double
or triple discrimination. 17 Complaints of insults, beatings, confinement and targeted forms
of violence are not uncommon.18 Ill-treatment extends to discrimination based on
perceptions or preconceptions, for example, when men suspected of homosexual conduct
are subjected to non-consensual anal examinations to “prove” or “disprove” their
homosexuality.19
62.
Abuse may be perpetrated by fellow inmates or by the staff of the place of detention.
Some studies have recorded that non-heterosexual inmates are 10 times more likely than
heterosexual inmates to be sexually assaulted by other inmates, and 3 times more likely to
be sexually assaulted by prison staff.20 In the case of transgender persons, the likelihood of
being sexually assaulted by a fellow inmate was 13 times higher than for cisgender
persons.21
63.
Research on sexual abuse in correctional facilities consistently documents the
vulnerability of men and women with non-heterosexual orientations and of transgender
individuals. The basic statistics revealed in such research have been confirmed by the
experience of members of the Subcommittee; for example, one gay inmate reported to the
Subcommittee that he had been raped on multiple occasions and made to walk around
wearing short skirts (see CAT/OP/PRY/1, para. 214), and lesbians have reported having
been subjected to so-called “corrective rape”.
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
See, for example, Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, opinion No. 22/2006 (Cameroon).
Jaime M. Grant and others, Injustice at Every Turn: A Report of the Transgender Discrimination
Survey (Washington, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force and National Center for Transgender
Equality, 2011), p. 163.
See A/HRC/13/39/Add.5, para. 231 and A/56/156, para. 19. The Special Rapporteur has also
observed the lack of relevant statistics, owing to which the problems faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender persons are virtually invisible to policymakers.
See, for example, Council of Europe, “Report to the Czech Government on the visit to the Czech
Republic carried out by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment from 1 to 10 April 2014” (Strasbourg, 2015), para. 46, and
“Report to the Armenian Government on the visit to Armenia carried out by the European Committee
for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment from 10 to 21 May
2010” (Strasbourg, 2011), para. 66.
Such examinations, which are medically worthless, have also been condemned by the Committee
against Torture and the Special Rapporteur on torture (see A/HRC/19/41, para. 37).
United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, “Sexual victimization in prisons and
jails reported by inmates, 2011-12: national inmate survey, 2011-12”, pp. 18 and 30. Available at
www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/svpjri1112.pdf.
University of California, Irvine, Center for Evidence-Based Corrections, “Violence in California
correctional facilities: an empirical examination of sexual assault” (2007), p. 42.
13
Select target paragraph3
Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents