Review of the standard minimum rules for the treatment of prisoners 2013, para. 52
Paragraph- Paragraph text
- Medical examinations are a crucial tool in corroborating or refuting allegations of physical and psychological mistreatment. They are also integral to prevention efforts. While forensic science has made progress, the impact of medical examinations is undermined by a lack of rigorous implementation, inadequate funding, insufficient training and institutional dependencies. In many cases, health care is provided by physicians who have an almost exclusively therapeutic role or by nurses or paramedics with only basic medical training, as their focus is on curing sick detainees and examining new arrivals for contagious diseases or obvious wounds. They often lack the required expertise to properly document ill-treatment. Furthermore, reporting signs of torture raises challenges regarding perceived loyalty conflicts (to the prison administration and to the prisoner) and the responsibility to assure the safety of prisoners. In turn, persons deprived of liberty are invariably caught between a legal requirement to provide evidence to support allegations of torture or other ill-treatment and the lack of practical possibilities to produce such evidence. Records of medical examinations upon arrest or transfer often do not exist and recourse to forensic expertise is at the discretion of the supervising authority, who has ample opportunity to delay authorization until the signs of torture have disappeared.
- Legal status
- Non-negotiated soft law
- Body
- Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment
- Document type
- Special Procedures' report
- Means of adoption
- N.A.
- Topic(s)
- Health
- Humanitarian
- Person(s) affected
- Persons on the move
- Year
- 2013
- Paragraph type
- Other
- Paragraph number
- 52
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