#detention facility

[brinaarcadia]

SHE IS THE WAY

[coochiequeens]

No woman should ever be an afterthought"

By Lorraine Finlay Dec 10 2024

Picture this. It has been months since you last saw or hugged a loved one, including your children. You are a survivor of domestic violence but are now living next door to men who are sex offenders. You speak little English. And your life in detention has no end date.

This is a common experience for women in Australia’s immigration detention system. Their visas have either lapsed or been revoked, or they never had one in the first place after arriving here in a way deemed to be illegal.

In Australia, women make up a small number, roughly 6%, of people in immigration detention. These women are wedged into a system which operates predominantly with men in mind, with their separate and specific needs widely overlooked.

On Wednesday, the Australian Human Rights Commission published the findings of an investigation into the experiences of women living within this system. As part of our inspections, I spoke with women in all immigration detention facilities where they are housed. What they told me was extremely alarming.

They spoke of limited privacy and widespread exposure to harassment and violence. Of leering men at the gym. Of not having access to the canteen. Of inadequate medical and mental health support. Of living in a constant state of stress and anxiety. Of wanting to turn their lives around, but being banned from work, study or vocational training.

And what they told us was confirmed by what we saw at the centres ourselves. There were too many examples of the housing, the facilities, the programs, and services such as healthcare or education being either insufficient, inappropriate or unsafe, with staff not adequately trained to address women’s needs. We met with staff who want to make changes and are trying their best, but who find themselves up against a system that is too often resistant to change

In just one example, at Sydney’s Villawood immigration detention centre – which has the highest number of women of any facility in Australia – women are housed next to a compound that includes men who are sex offenders. With many of these women being survivors of abuse, a shared fence line exposes them to the risk of further harm.

The separation of families was another key issue raised with us. Most women are detained far from their families – often interstate – which makes it difficult for their children and loved ones to visit. We were told by some women that they have not been able to hug a family member in years. This is unacceptable, particularly when Australians are told that immigration detention is not meant to be punitive.

Previous reports I have led show there are also significant human rights concerns facing men in immigration detention. But, as it stands, detained women are at an increased vulnerability.

In every system, people’s backgrounds, gender and circumstances will impact their needs and rights. In immigration detention centres, the current risk to women’s health and safety is of urgent concern.

Our report makes 31 recommendations to better protect the human rights of women in immigration detention, as well as improving the quality of the work environment and support for staff. These include better conditions across centres, such as safer housing, gender-specific staff training and female recruitment, enhanced access to healthcare, education, and meaningful activities.

The Department of Home Affairs has cautiously responded to our report, accepting or partially agreeing with 11 of the recommendations. We urge it to take immediate action and implement our recommendations in full.

Our report is another reminder that things must change. Improving the treatment of women in immigration detention helps raise the bar to how we are all treated. No woman should ever be an afterthought.

 Lorraine Finlay is Australia’s human rights commissioner

[dailykugisaki]

Day eighty-two | id in alt

Fresh from the juvenile facility to make more juvenile mistakes.

Kugisaki will tell Shoko that she just messed up, an accident.

(For those of you who don't or cannot read my tags, The reason Kugisaki has that kinda look is because I think in the juvenile facility she had strained herself of cursed energy too far and almost gave herself a brain hemorrhage!💥)

[storekn1fe]

every day i'm so sad we only got one chapter with these three as a trio.

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

[sapphia]

love how everyone on this website is like "the justice system's broken!" but they mean like, the US justice system. which is not a system that half of the userbase here actually live under

[planetkiimchi]

"Last Wednesday, the Israeli Supreme Court held a hearing in response to a petition brought forward by Israeli rights group, HaMoked, to reveal the location of a Palestinian X-Ray technician detained from Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza in February. It was the first court session of its kind since October 7."

if people in israel can speak up against this genocide, as someone who will not be subject the legal repercussions they are likely to face, how can you stay silent?

Concentration camp.

They built a concentration camp.

I don't think words can describe what this other than genocide.

[nationnow]

Haunting words of Syrian prisoners on walls inside 'Human Slaughterhouse'

New photographs from the Palestine Branch detention facility in Damascus show the chilling graffiti edged onto its cold and dark cell walls. One message quoted an 800-year-old poet who defied a tyrannical caliph that said, “My country, even if it oppresses me, is dear. My people, even if uncharitable to me, are generous.” “Trust no one, not even your brother,” another bleak message reads.…

[eileennatural]

yeah this is true but i feel like often this point gets simplified to "for profit prisons are bad" instead of "prisons are bad" like. for profit prisons are absolutely terrible but the great majority of prisons making use of this or similar practices are state or even federally run.

[brinaarcadia]

Guess I had the wrong of it, when it came to Doctor Lamb… she explained how my cravings for control were rotting me out from the inside. We found all these incidents in my log where I made it easy for a convict to get the jump on me, just so I could bloody punish him. Christ. But I believe I can do some good down here, now… with the Family… well, we have a shot at surviving that fucking bedlam going on up there. Maybe even take the city back.

[lonniemichaelfulbright-blog]

The Defender's Chronical

Large-scale prisons being secretly erected in all 50 states – will they be used to house illegals or force Americans into concentration camps? By Ethan Huff // Jun 26, 2024 Former 24-year Customs and Border Patrol (CPB) veteran J.J. Carrell got the chance to interview Christie Hutcherson of Women Fighting for America about a sinister plot by the globalists to build large-scale prison structures…

[auroraborus]

Are you guys reading this article? Have you been listening to the Palestinians describing these conditions for years? (before Oct 7) Do you know about the 13000 children slaughtered? Have you seen the mass graves, where hospital patients were zip tied and executed? Do you understand? Do you remember our history?

Do you know what this is?

[heritageposts]

🇵🇸 From BDS:

More than 300 Palestinian sports teams are calling to ban Israel from the Olympics over its genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. [...] In Gaza, Israel has killed Palestinian Olympic Football coach Hani Al Masdar, destroyed the Palestinian Olympic Committee offices, and turned sports facilities into shameful mass detention and torture centers. We can’t sit back as the IOC allows Israel to use the Olympics to sportswash its genocide in Gaza and its apartheid regime against Palestinians everywhere. Support the call from Palestinian teams. Join the campaign to #BanIsrael from the Olympics and peacefully disrupt the road to the Paris 2024 games. 

Global days of action planned for March 15-17:

Ahead of the IOC executive board meeting in Lausanne Switzerland (March 19-21), take the call from Palestinian teams to your National Olympic Committee, International Sports Federations and Recognized Sports Federations. Organize protests, sit-ins, peaceful disruptions, or awareness raising events on Israeli attacks on Palestinian sports.

For more concrete information on how you can participate in the campaign, see the link above. You should also check in with your local BDS-affiliated organization(s) to see if they have anything planned for these dates (if they don't, consider bringing it up to them)

If you're not familiar with any BDS-affiliated organizations in your country (or state/city), then take a look at BDS's "Join a Campaign'"page.

There's also a petition you can sign.

[27moremoons]

Israeli officials have obstructed a UN investigation into alleged sexual crimes committed by Hamas fighters during the 7 October 2023 Al-Aqsa Flood operation, fearing this would open the door to a probe into the rampant allegations of sexual violence against Palestinians inside Israeli torture camps.

According to a report by Israeli daily Haaretz, Tel Aviv rejected a request from Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Sexual Violence in Conflict, to investigate the allegations against Hamas after she established that a necessary condition would be access to Israeli detention centers to probe claims against Israeli soldiers.

"The clear concern is that Israel will be the one to be added to the blacklist of entities and countries that engage in sexual violence in conflicts, while the terrorist organization Hamas will actually remain off the list," Mia Schocken, director of the international department of the Israeli Women's Lobby told Haaretz.

Thursday's report comes mere days after Israeli prosecutor Moran Gaz confirmed during an interview with Yediot Ahronoth that no allegations of rape or sexual assault by Hamas on 7 October have been filed.

“In the end, we don’t have any complainants. What was presented in the media compared to what will eventually come together will be entirely different,” she said, adding that her office “approached women’s rights organizations and asked for cooperation. They told us that no one had approached them,” she stressed.

Multiple media outlets have debunked claims of “Hamas rape” on 7 October 2023. [...] since the start of the Israeli genocide in Gaza, human rights organizations have documented dozens of accounts of the rampant sexual violence inflicted on Palestinians inside Israeli detention centers.

In August, Israeli NGO B’Tselem published a report titled “Welcome to Hell,” containing testimonies from 55 Palestinians detailing incidents of torture, rape, violence, humiliation, starvation, and denial of adequate medical treatment. This report came days after the military police arrested eight Israeli prison guards on suspicion of raping a male Palestinian prisoner at the notorious Sde Teiman camp.

A doctor at the army detention facility at Sde Teiman, Professor Yoel Donchin, said that after seeing the Palestinian detainee who was gang raped, he “couldn’t believe an Israeli prison guard could do such a thing.”

Following the guards' arrest, Israeli settlers, far-right activists, and Knesset members started riots, breaking into Sde Teiman and the nearby Beit Leid army base in “defense” of the soldiers. Even after the rioters breached the entrances, no one was arrested or even identified by Israeli police.

[...] Channel 14 hosted one of the Sde Teiman guards accused of raping Palestinians on one of its programs. The soldier stated, “The military police treated us really nice... You see the support … With a hand on their heart, like, telling you ‘thank you’!”

Last July, the UN human rights office issued a report saying Palestinians detained in Israeli detention centers since 7 October face waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, dog attacks, and other brutal acts of torture. 

“The testimonies gathered by my office and other entities indicate a range of appalling acts, such as waterboarding and the release of dogs on detainees, amongst other acts, in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” UN Human Rights Chief, Volker Türk, said in a statement.

Sde Teiman itself has been referred to as Israel’s Guantanamo. Dozens of prisoners at the facility have been killed, the New York Times reported last year.