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They Treat Us Like Animals: Drug Detention Centers of Cambodia

A U.S.-based rights group has called for the immediate closure of Cambodia’s eight drug detention centers, saying they are holding inmates illegally and subjecting them to abuse, including torture, sexual violence, and forced labor.

The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the call was based on its extensive study of the centers located in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, and Koh Kong provinces, as well as in the capital, Phnom Penh, and based on interviews with 33 former inmates. It said that along with drug users, authorities had also locked up homeless people in the centers, as well as beggars, street children, sex workers, and people with disabilities.

The centers, which the government claims were built for treating drug dependency, are run by the Cambodian military, gendarmerie, police, Social Affairs Ministry, and municipal authorities, the rights group said.

Free Radio Asia

The 55-page report documents the experiences of people recently confined in the centers, who described being thrashed with rubber water hoses and hit with sticks or branches. Some described being punished with exercises intended to cause intense physical pain and humiliation, such as crawling along stony ground or standing in septic water pits. Former female detainees described rape and other sexual abuse by male guards. Many detainees said they were forced to work unpaid in the centers – and in some cases, on construction sites – and those who refused were beaten.

Human Rights Watch

In China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, over 2.5 million adults currently use opiates and over 3.5 million use amphetamines. In all four countries, drug use is primarily treated as an administrative infraction and not a criminal offense. In Vietnam and Cambodia, government officials often state that people dependent on drugs are “patients,” rather than “criminals.” In Laos, the national drug law states that “[d]rug addicts are to be considered as victims.” In China, the law requires that drug users be rehabilitated.

However, the use of administrative law, along with the rhetoric of “patients” and “victims,” masks an approach to drug use that sees dependency as a moral failing, rather than a medical condition. In all four countries, drug “detoxification,” “treatment,” or “rehabilitation” centers hold individuals suspected of drug use (regardless of dependency) for extended periods. These centers are neither prisons nor hospitals: individuals are held without due process protections or judicial oversight of detention. At the same time, the centers lack evidence-based drug dependency treatment and, often, any trained health care personnel. While drug rehabilitation in China and Vietnam is historically grounded in the long-established, political system of “re-education through labor,” compulsory drug “treatment” centers are a more recent phenomenon in Cambodia and Laos.

Compulsory Drug Detention Centers in China, Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos: Health and Human Rights Abuse

A child in a Cambodian drug rehabilitation centre was forced to perform oral sex on a military police commander while women in the same institutions have been raped for days on end, a damning new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found.

The study titled Torture in the Name of Treatment: Human Rights Abuses in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR, also found Cambodian inmates were forced to build houses for guards and were often detained despite no clear evidence they were addicted to drugs.

Treatments shown to work based on evidence are absent from the centres in Cambodia and Vietnam, yet despite this and the systematic abuse uncovered, donors and UN agencies working with relevant government authorities did little to intervene, the report states.

Cambodian children told Human Rights Watch of how they were beaten, shocked with electric batons and subjected to sexual abuse by staff.

“Some massages I had to give were sexual ... if I did not do this, he would beat me. The commander asked me to ‘eat ice cream’ [perform oral sex]. I refused, and he slapped me ... Performing oral sex happened many times ... how could I refuse?” it quoted an anonymous child as saying.

Former women detainees had spoken of how others were sexually assaulted after they were taken away on the pretext that they had made a mistake.

“Sometimes, they raped the same women five days consecutively because there were no new arrivals … They raped a mute woman about five or six times. I saw this with my own eyes,” one detainee said, according to the report.

“Other times, I heard her scream ... I just heard the way [she] tried to make a sound.”

Among other human rights violations found inside Cambodian centres during the five-year study, detainees had been tied up in the sun without food or water for hours and placed in isolation cells.

Khieu Samorn, director of the anti-drug department at the Ministry of Interior, slammed the accusations as “baseless” observations made outside the country and said HRW should focus on helping the government crack down on drug producers and criminals.

Phnom Penh Post

Human Rights Watch Slams Cambodian Drug Detention Centers

UN General Assembly: Report of the Special Rapporteur of Torture and Other Cruel, Inhumane, Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Juan E Mendez

Partners in Crime: International Funding for Drug Control and Gross Violations of Human Rights

Link Resource Page: Asia's Pacific Drug and Development Issues Committee

Launched in 2011, UNODC's Community-Based Drug-Treatment (CBTx) program is a vastly different alternative to the Compulsory Centres for Drug Users (CCDUs) currently in place throughout Cambodia. Studies from around the world show that community-based models of treatment for drug addiction are far more effective than compulsory treatment largely because they create long-term supportive environments for users that include family and the community. 

With assistance from the local community, the Cambodia Community-Based Drug Treatment program provides drug users with voluntary, cost-effective and sustainable drug treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration services. Community stakeholders include public hospitals, health centres, HIV/STI services, non-government organizations, families, community leaders and the police. At any stage of their drug use and dependence, drug-users can freely and continuously access services that include counseling, self-help and harm-minimization education. 

Local support available is extensive. This encourages more people to access drug treatment and creates a virtuous cycle that benefits the community. The Commune Chief visits drug users at home while local non-government organizations provide transport for drug users to service providers. Community based treatment project participants now have greater job opportunities, while the community has benefited from improved security and safety within the commune. 

Innovative Community Based Drug Treatment Makes Inroads in Cambodia

Leaked Transcripts Surrounding Asylum Detention Damning Morrison

In his September 25, 2014 video message to asylum seekers detained on Manus Island and Nauru, Scott Morrison plays the tough guy.

A deadpan Minister for Immigration speaks directly into the camera: “If you are currently in Papua New Guinea or Nauru, you will not be transferred to Australia… you will remain there until you either choose to return, or you are resettled somewhere else other than in Australia.

“Now is the time to think about your future, for you and your family.”

The video was designed to bludgeon detainees into returning to the countries from which they fled.

It backfired, spectacularly.

Contrary to Morrison’s message, there was no influx of ‘illegals’ on Nauru asking the Department of Immigration and Border Protection to send them home.

Instead, there was widespread anger, and protests. And as the anger grew, so did the numbers protesting, and so did the intensity.

Over the course of a week, both adults and children began to self-harm, with detainees drinking shampoo and mosquito repellent, others attempting suicide by hanging, and some detainees as young as 15 sewing their lips together.

The disturbing details are contained within a string of interviews with Philip Moss, the former Integrity Commissioner charged by the Abbott Government with investigating allegations that asylum seekers on Nauru were raped, and that government contracted workers were involved in assisting detainees in the protests, including coaching them to self-harm in order to generate public sympathy for their plight.

Leaked transcripts of some of those interviews have been obtained by New Matilda. They contain deeply disturbing testimony of asylum seekers about their treatment on Nauru.

They also contain some stunning insights into the inner workings of the Department of Immigration.

Full article and transcripts

What I Couldn't Say: All About Women Festival

Albuquerque Proposes Bill to Shower Homeless

State Rep. Stephanie Maez, who represents a section of Albuquerque, recently introduced a bill that would put $200,000 toward constructing and deploying a bus equipped with showers and restrooms.

At last count, there were 1,170 homeless individuals living in Albuquerque. More than 10 percent of them were children, and an even larger percentage were veterans.

Restrooms can be a difficult challenge for officials trying to balance the desire to prevent public urination and defecation with the fact that bodily functions don’t magically cease to exist for homeless people. Many cities lack a sufficient number of public restrooms to serve their homeless populations, and most have even fewer (if any) public showers.

With no bathroom of their own and few public options, the result is entirely expected: people have no choice but to go in public. But rather than providing more facilities for the homeless, most governments are instead seeking to throw people in jail for needing to use the bathroom.

Full Article: Think Progress

Innovative Homelessness Solutions
House First
Utah's progressive ending homelessness policy
Home Petite Home

Mypad: Designed for homeless transition period

Small Wonders: Innovative Solutions for Sheltering the Homeless

Some of these ideas are pretty impractical to fix the homeless problem, but some are pretty interesting and could be adopted by our local governments and communities.
Housing for the Homeless

Related Papers: Social Innovation to Solve Homelessness: Wicked Solutions for Wicked Problems
Australian Homelessness Clearinghouse

Related Article: To End Homelessness, Solve a Bigger Problem

Goods Produced by Child Labour

List of Goods Produced by Child Labor or Forced Labor, 2013

Country	Good	Child Labor	Forced Labor
Afghanistan	Bricks	X	X
Afghanistan	Carpets	X
Afghanistan	Coal	X
Afghanistan	Flowers (poppies)	X
Angola	Diamonds	X	X
Argentina	Blueberries	X
Argentina	Bricks	X
Argentina	Cotton	X
Argentina	Garlic	X
Argentina	Garments	X	X
Argentina	Grapes	X
Argentina	Olives	X
Argentina	Strawberries	X
Argentina	Tobacco	X
Argentina	Tomatoes	X
Argentina	Yerba Mate (stimulant plant)	X
Azerbaijan	Cotton	X
Bangladesh	Bidis (hand-rolled cigarettes)	X
Bangladesh	Bricks	X
Bangladesh	Dried Fish	X	X
Bangladesh	Footwear	X
Bangladesh	Furniture (steel)	X
Bangladesh	Garments	X
Bangladesh	Glass	X
Bangladesh	Leather	X
Bangladesh	Matches	X
Bangladesh	Poultry	X
Bangladesh	Salt	X
Bangladesh	Shrimp	X
Bangladesh	Soap	X
Bangladesh	Textiles	X
Bangladesh	Textiles (jute)	X
Belize	Bananas	X
Belize	Citrus Fruits	X
Belize	Sugarcane	X
Benin	Cotton	X	X
Benin	Granite (crushed)	X
Bolivia	Brazil Nuts/Chestnuts	X	X
Bolivia	Bricks	X
Bolivia	Cattle		X
Bolivia	Corn	X	X
Bolivia	Gold	X
Bolivia	Peanuts		X
Bolivia	Silver	X
Bolivia	Sugarcane	X	X
Bolivia	Tin	X
Bolivia	Zinc	X
Brazil	Beef	X
Brazil	Bricks	X
Brazil	Cashews	X

Full List: United States Department of Labour