News

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Bangkok rules

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Girl Power

On 8th March 2023, International Women’s Day, we decided to calculate just how much Girl Power we possess…

Founders: 50% female

Governors: Philippines 43% female, UK 40% female

Managers: 100% female

Staff: 67% female

Long-term volunteers: 75% female

Current short-term volunteers: 100% female

Previous short-term volunteers: 95% female

If you’d like to read what our ladies have got up to lately, we’re pleased and proud to introduce you to Healthy Bonds, our 2023 impact report.

Girl Dis-empower

And it’s a good job we are such a female-dominated organization, because the number of female prisoners across the world is increasing fast - up 20% since 2000!

How many women are behind bars right now, do you think…?

100,000?

250,000?

500,000??

No, it’s well in excess of 750,000! That’s an awful lot of female disempowerment.

Girl Re-empower

But there is one tool that is helping to shine a pink-ish tinged light into this feminine doom and gloom…

The so-called Bangkok Rules are United Nations rules on the treatment of female detainees and non-detaineed offenders. If you haven’t read them, please do! And if you know someone who works with female detainees, shove a copy under their nose!

No, they don’t make the problem of female detention go away. But, where they are properly implemented, they make a significant difference to the re-empowerment of female detainees.

Dr Rachael Pickering is our co-founder and Chief Medical Officer.
Her views do not necessarily represent those of Integritas Healthcare
This article was first published elsewhere on this site on 8th March 2023

Alexei Navalny

One day

My 16th February 2024 started out as a pretty standard Friday, doing my job as a doctor within the UK’s prison system. Sadly, it ended in tragedy with the unexpected death of one of my detained patients. After leaving the prison, I sat in my car for a while, thinking and praying for my late patient’s family. And as I drove out of the prison car park, I noticed two parked up police vehicles…

Investigation

Of course, the police were there because - whether expected or unexpected, self-inflicted, accidental or murderous - all UK deaths in custody are subject to extensive investigation by multiple agencies:-

In addition to all these measures, the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT), which is responsible for monitoring member states’ compliance with Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights, also takes a keen interest in deaths behind bars.

Two deaths

In the busyness of managing the immediate aftermath of my own detained patient’s death, I missed the breaking news about another custodial tragedy - that same day but thousands of miles away, in the frozen Artic Circle…

Prisoner Alexei Navalny, the fiercest and most enduring critic of President Putin, is dead.

Investigation?

  • He died just one day after being well enough to laugh and joke with his judge.

  • There is the usual confusion about the cause of his death and the location of his body,

  • The Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation, whose agency executive is (according to Wikipedia) a certain President Putin, is on the case.

  • And so it remains to be seen whether the United Nations has engaged in a spot of wishful thinking, in calling for his death to be rigorously investigated.

One judge

UK detainees are relatively blessed compared with those held in many other parts of the world. UK conditions of detention are regulated, monitored and - when found to fall short - investigated. Yes, I know full well that there are many problems behind my nation’s bars - and the CPT highlights these failings on a frequent basis. But compared with many places in the world, UK places of detention sit within a veritable Garden of Eden where the Rule of Law presides.

Yet viewed through the long lens of eternity, whether a free President in the Russian Federation or a detained person in the UK, one day every one of us will die and face judgement by the same Judge.

Court hearing

From His courtroom, He examines all the goings on in our world, with notable concern for detainees:-

The Lord looked down from His sanctuary on high, from heaven He viewed the earth, to hear the groans of the prisoners and release those condemned to death.
Psalm 102:19-20

Final judgment

And to those who ignore the visible suffering of others, yet alone those who cause it, He will say…

 Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire… For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat… I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me…

Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.
Matthew 25:41-45

The author is one of our spokespeople
Their views do not necessarily represent those of Integritas Healthcare
This article was first published elsewhere on this site on 17th February 2024