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‘Archaic, humiliating’ strip searches in Australia must end

The Human Rights Law Centre has delivered a statement at the 38th Session of the United Nations Human Rights Council, calling on the Australian government to improve laws around strip-searching and better uphold women’s rights.

user iconJerome Doraisamy 26 June 2018 Politics
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Human Rights Law Centre director of legal advocacy Ruth Barson said that routine strip searches are “archaic and humiliating”, but they remain an everyday practice for thousands of women behind bars in Australia.

“Being forced to remove every last item of clothing in front of two prison guards again and again strips women of dignity and hope,” she said.

Such searches happen on a regular basis, she said, including upon entry to a prison, when family and friends visit, when visiting a prison doctor, and to attend court.

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“When a mother wants to hug her visiting child, when a pregnant woman has a check-up with her doctor, when a woman has to attend court, she is subjected to a damaging strip search,” she explained.

“There are far less intrusive scanning technologies that governments could choose to use right now to spare women this harm.”

HRLC made its case to the UN Human Rights Council, in a statement delivered by one of its lawyers, Lee Jia-Yi Carni.

“There are far more humane and effective alternatives to strip searches such as modern non-invasive search techniques [such as pat-downs, scanners and x-rays], which have been successfully adopted in other states, such as the United Kingdom,” Ms Carni told the council.

“Australian governments could, and should, end this degrading and dehumanising practice today.”

Australia was recently re-elected as a member of the Human Rights Council for a second term, on the back of a promise to uphold women’s and indigenous people’s rights.

But the government cannot just say one thing on the world stage and do the opposite at home, Ms Barson argued.

“For the Australian government to have any credibility, it must get its house in order,” she said.

“Women in Australia suffering injustice right now need action, not just hollow words.”

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