Yahoo Finance Aboriginal woman in ACT prison alleges she was stripped naked in front of male inmates
An Aboriginal woman with a serious heart condition, who is on remand in the ACT’s only prison, has said she was forcibly stripped naked by guards in full view of male inmates, in an alleged incident the territory’s Aboriginal health service has described as a “disgusting” abuse of human rights which “could have killed her”.
The 37-year-old has a pacemaker and a collapsed lung. She also has borderline personality disorder and is a sexual assault survivor. She has been on remand at the Alexander Maconochie detention centre for six months.
The woman has outlined her version of events in a letter seen by Guardian Australia.
In early January, she was told her grandmother had died and the funeral was being held in a week’s time. The woman said she asked permission to attend and “completed paperwork” to make the request official.
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The day before the funeral, she was told that “due to logistics” the request was denied, which caused her to become “very upset”. She said a number of prison guards and nurses tried to move her to the Crisis Support Unit, or CSU, “because they fear for my safety and mental health”.
The woman said she had spent time in isolation in previous weeks and was distressed at the prospect of going back.
She alleged that officers stripped her naked by cutting off her clothes to check she had “nothing on me for my safety”. She claimed four female officers in “full squad gear” – two male officers and two male nurses – were present. The incident was allegedly visible to several male detainees. She also claimed she was menstruating at the time which she said compounded her embarrassment and distress.
“Here I ask you to remember that I am a rape victim, so you can only imagine the horror, the screams, the degrading feeling, the absolute fear and shame I was experiencing … as well as the grief and despair, disappointment of not being able to attend my grandmother’s funeral,” she wrote.
The woman is a client of the Winnunga Nimmityjah Aboriginal health centre which runs a daily clinic at the prison.
The Winnunga Nimmityjah chief executive, Julie Tongs, said the treatment alleged in the letter showed a “complete disregard” for the woman’s dignity and well-being.
“It’s disgusting and I don’t think things like that should be happening in this day and age,” she said.
“To do that to [the woman] especially with all her health issues, putting her at such huge risk, but also the trauma from her previous history of sexual abuse, that is just not appropriate. I don’t care whether she’s in prison or not, it should not be happening.
“I get that there are times when people fear for a detainee’s safety, but there are other ways of doing business. It’s just not right, they could have killed her, she could have died. And who takes responsibility then?”
In the ACT, men and women are housed in the same jail. Tongs said female inmates “have to walk past the men to get to the health centre or to go to the programs area, and that’s not an ideal situation, especially for women that have been sexually or physically abused”.
A 2019 report into the prison by the corrections inspector, Neil McAllister, found that women’s proximity to the men’s units exposed them “to verbal harassment and abuse”.
“The ACT government needs to find a long‑term solution to this problem,” he wrote.
Tongs has written to the ACT corrections minister, Mick Gentleman, demanding an independent investigation into the incident as well as a broader inquiry into alleged racism inside the Alexander Maconochie centre.
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A spokesperson for Gentleman confirmed he had received the letter and Tongs’ request.
“The Alexander Maconochie Centre has strong oversight from a range of different agencies, including the Official Visitor, the ACT Ombudsman, and the ACT Human Rights Commission. ACT Corrective Services works with oversight agencies to respond to and address complaints from detainees,” the spokesperson said.
The spokesperson said the minister was aware the incident had been brought to the attention of the human rights commission.
Tongs said the ombudsman, the human rights commissioner and the corrections inspector had all been notified of the incident.
