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full version - World Organisation Against Torture

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Violence <strong>Against</strong> Women: 10 Reports / Year 2003At the Manaus prison, women stated that male guards had enteredseveral times to verbally and physically abuse a mentally ill woman prisoner.80Another reported problem is the lack of gender segregation within thesame detention facilities. In Rio de Janeiro state, for instance, there areonly two police districts in which women in lockup are held in gendersegregatedshort-term jail facilities.Women in custody have limited recreational facilities with respect to menand face discrimination in conjugal visiting rights. Unlike the men’s prisons,most women’s prisons do not have very large exercise areas. Many ofthem include only small paved patios, allowing women inmates almost nospace to exercise. In Brazil intimate visits of women in custody are notseen as a right 81 but as a benefit. Only two prisons allow these visits, onein Porto Alegre, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, and the other in SãoPaulo. In the one located in Porto Alegre the anachronism on the regulationof male and female intimate visits is made very clear: female intimatevisits are allowed only to partners with legal married status and only twicea month, 82 while male intimate visits are allowed 8 times a month withoutthe requirement of marriage.Equally, most prisons do not observe the Law of Criminal Executionsregarding the obligation of creating kindergartens for children under 6years old if they are to remain without care 83 following their mothers’detention. This situation is made worse by the fact that the vast majorityof women in prison are mothers and heads of their household.Despite the fact that women prisoners usually have more medical needsthan men prisoners, medical care is often extremely deficient in penalfacilities for women. 84 HIV/AIDS is a serious threat to the healthof women prisoners: indeed, studies indicate that the disease strikes aneven higher percentage of incarcerated women than men. Twenty percentof the women prisoners tested for the AIDS virus at the Women’sPenitentiary in São Paulo were found to be HIV-positive. Medical staffat the Women’s Penitentiary in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul, saidthat they believed at least 10 percent of inmates at that facility to be HIVpositive.92

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