Photo 10: Visiting centre children’s play area (MIDC South)
The placement and care of transgender women
The Commission recognises that transgender persons, ‘are more likely than the general population to
experience assault and self-harm, and that these vulnerabilities are magnified when transgender persons are
incarcerated’.140
The UN Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women has reported that, globally, transgender persons in
detention:
[F]ace unique and particularly harsh circumstances in prison systems, including issues of classification
for their prison placement, the possibility of administrative segregation, barriers to the accessibility of
hormone treatment, and higher instances of abuse and discriminatory treatment.141
The UN SPT has also stated that ‘[i]n the case of transgender persons, the likelihood of being sexually
assaulted by a fellow inmate was 13 times higher than for cisgender persons’.142
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Not just an afterthoughtThe experience of women in immigration detention