# Me Too: Global Progress in Tackling Continued Custodial Violence Against Women: The 10-Year Anniversary of the Bangkok Rules

Abstract

On any given day, almost 11 million people globally are deprived of their liberty. In 2020, the global female population was estimated to be 741,000, an increase of 105,000 since 2010. In order to investigate progress in the adoption of the Bangkok Rules since 2010, we conducted a legal realist assessment based on a global scoping exercise of empirical research and United Nations (UN) reporting, using detailed MESH terms across university and UN databases. We found evidences in 91 documents which directly relate to violations of the Bangkok Rules in 55 countries. By developing a realist account, we document the precarious situation of incarcerated women and continued evidence of systemic failures to protect them from custodial violence and other gender-sensitive human rights breaches worldwide. Despite prison violence constituting a complex and multifaceted phenomenon, very little research (from the United States, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, and Australia) has been conducted on custodial violence against women since 2010. Although standards of detention itself is a focus of UN universal periodic review, special procedures (violence against women) and concluding observations by the UN committees, very few explicitly mentioned women, and the implications of violence against them while incarcerated. We highlight three central aspects that hinder the full implementation of the Bangkok Rules; the past decade of a continued invisible nature of women as prisoners in the system; the continued legitimization, normalization, and trivialization of violence under the pretext of security within their daily lives; and the unawareness and disregard of international (Bangkok and others) rules.

The relevancy of massive health education in the Brazilian prison system: The course “health care for people deprived of freedom” and its impacts

“…Such impacts are in synergy with at least five goals directly implicated in policies for the prison system: SDG 3-Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages. This goal aggregates the 2010 "Bangkok Rules" and the 2015 "Nelson Mandela Rules" (11,52,53), which are existing policies to encourage changes in the field of Prison Health (54). Notably, prenatal and postnatal care and sexually transmitted diseases (STD) are highlighted.…”

Bringing the “Invisible Population” to Light: Justice for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women

“…Despite this, recent evidence reveals that 55 countries have been in violation of the Bangkok Rules (Van Hout et al, 2021). In their legal realist assessment, Van Hout and colleagues (2021) found that women in prison faced continued systemic failures to protect them from custodial violence.…”

“…Despite this, recent evidence reveals that 55 countries have been in violation of the Bangkok Rules (Van Hout et al, 2021). In their legal realist assessment, Van Hout and colleagues (2021) found that women in prison faced continued systemic failures to protect them from custodial violence. They concluded that 1) the invisible nature of incarcerated women; 2) the victimization, normalization, and trivialization of violence under the guise of security; and 3) the lack of awareness and disregard of international rules hindered the full implementation of the Bangkok Rules.…”

“…They concluded that 1) the invisible nature of incarcerated women; 2) the victimization, normalization, and trivialization of violence under the guise of security; and 3) the lack of awareness and disregard of international rules hindered the full implementation of the Bangkok Rules. Because many countries have failed to fully adopt the Bangkok and Tokyo Rules, many prisons worldwide are overcrowded, fail to protect incarcerated women against violence, rely on indiscriminate detention and solitary confinement, and do not provide imprisoned women with full access to medical care, drug treatment, and mental health supports that are trauma-informed and trauma-responsive (Van Hout et al, 2021).…”

‘Women’s right to health in detention’: United Nations Committee Observations since the adoption of the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (Bangkok Rules)

“…Women represent the minority in the global prison population and are generally detained for less severe and non-violent crimes (crimes of poverty). They are disproportionately affected by lower socioeconomic status, exposure to inter-personal violence (child abuse, intimate partner), custodial violence (prison staff, fellow prisoners) and mental illness; and often belong to identified vulnerable groups (sexual minorities, victims of sexual abuse, trafficking and drug related crime; and those with psychiatric illness, learning disabilities or drug dependence) (Karlsson and Zielinski 2020;Van Hout and Crowley 2021;Van Hout, Fleißner and Stöver 2021). Women's unique health needs in many regions of the world are often neglected by the male dominated and ill-resourced detention system.…”