Answer:
Thesis statement
This paper argues the condition of women in the prison together with examination of the privileges and the rights of the women in the prison. The essay argues on the gender specific needs and the rights of the women in the prison that are highlighted in UN documents and whether they are being systematically followed.
The essay argues the importance to emphasize on ensuring the fundamental rights to the women prisoners who have been suffering pathetic condition.
This essay highlights the condition of the female prisoners of the Canada and the challenges faced by them on the evidence of the violation of their basic human rights during their imprisonment
Introduction
Each and every individual has their right towards dignity that furthermore enshrined in several of the conventions and rules on an international basis (Lawrence, 2003).
Prisoners are generally the affected one regarding their right towards the dignity due to their imprisonment and the view of the prison as the centres for the reformation of the criminals.
Women, who generally constitute a very low proportion of the general population in the prison have been facing several violations of their rights together with the denial of many services and access towards fundamental necessities (Naghibi 2016).
The requirements and needs of women prisoners are different from the male prisoners. Women in prison tend to need some of the facilities for their health care.
This includes helping them in case of childbirth, for caring for the children in prison and towards receiving counselling to the guards against the chances or the possibility of sexual assault and rape (Chunn & Lacombe, 2000).
The essay explains an in-depth analysis regarding the nature of the challenges and the problems faced by women residing in jail and to study the consequences of the imprisonment of the inmates and their connection with their members of the family.
The importance of public health of the female prisoners is insufficiently recognized.
In the current decade, there has been a marked higher rate of the number of the prisoners in the United States.
The population of the women in the prison have been rising up to 71% as per the World Prison Population List (Seymour, 2017). With the increase in rate of the crimes and the violation towards policies and the regulations, women in the country are often taken in custody (Rubenstein et al., 2016).
This factor of the evidence raises the question regarding the growing number of health disparities which are evidenced to be true for the women prisoners of Canada, United States who do not receive proper health treatment and co-operation of their right towards the wellbeing and health.
The health status of the prisoners are an inevitable part of the public health (Halter, E. (2018).
Women in the prison generally tend to have more health requirements that are specific as compared to the male prisoners.
Women prisoners in the United States tend to suffer frequently from issues and challenges of mental health that includes post traumatic disorder of stress, self-harming and self-destruction, depression , anxiety and more (Rubenstein et al., 2016).
The female prisoners as per the report by the prison association suffer more than the male and the other general population in the context of the mental health as high as more than 90% (Dixey et al., 2015).
Furthermore, as per the evidences, the women prisoners are much more vulnerable towards self-harming and the commitment of suicide inside the prison.
In the United States, female prisoners are four times more likely to have experienced sexual and physical abuse within the prisoner and within the tine period of the imprisonment resulting in serious mental health and poor physical condition. Injection of drugs, risk of sexually transmitted infections like gonorrhoea, chlamydia, HIV/AIDS and syphilis are some of the major factors that tend to influence the female prisoners furthermore towards prostitution and sexual abuses (Halter, 2018).
Thus this evidence highlights one of the major challenges of female prisoners’ regaarding their right of the wellbeing, their right to life and the right to safe and healthy conditions in the prison which are violated by these factors stated above.
According to the Universal Declaration of the Human rights and the principles enshrined in the International Covenant on the Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, it is one of the basic requirements that all the prisoners should be provided with medical examination, necessary treatments of health care , access to health services and rights towards food suitability, hygiene, water , sanitation, ventilation and other basic necessities for living (Naghibi, 2016).
Lack of accommodation and support from the families of the female prisoners
The prisoners in the Canada, specially the women prisoners who have been charged or being convicted regarding the crimes against the mortality generally tends to be at the risk of being abandoned by their family members resulting in the lack of the vital support from the members of the family during their time of the imprisonment (Mignon, 2016).
The female prisoners furthermore received challenges in case of pregnancy when they are being imprisoned due to the lack of care a mother needs from the family at that time. This is because, the pregnant female prisoners rarely receive any adequate post natural care inside the prison (Mignon, 2016).
Due to high crowd and the lack of the proper hygiene and health benefits in the prison, the particular dietary requirements of pregnant women are generally not considered by the authorities of the prison and the provided food and the nutrients are mostly insufficient for meeting the nutritional needs of the pregnant female prisoners thus hampering and violating the basic human rights of the wellbeing of the prisoners (Abbott, 2018).
One of the major challenges involves the dealing with the women in the prisoner and their babies.
The separation of the women prisoners from their new born babies tends to have long term and traumatic impact on both the mothers and the children at the same time.
Due to the lack of the appropriate environment for the growing up children in side the prison and the lack of proper health services, there exist the violation and the hampering of both the rights of the children and the female prisoners thus permanently damaging the mental well being and the psychological structure of the individuals in concern.
Since the mothers constitute the primary care givers of the family, as per the reports, the imprisonment of the female members often leads to break up of the family and the child to go for some of the other alternative career like state welfare services and the institutions (Clark, Hughto & Pachankis, 2017).
Researches have furthermore illustrated the fact that children from the imprisoned mothers are generally at a greater risk towards upcoming incarcerating themselves (Dixey et al., 2015). These children are often at risk of committing crimes.
Further challenges faced by the female prisoners include the lack of the visit to the prisons by the family members due to the cost of the finance that is required for each of the visit to the prison (Van Gundy & Baumann-Grau, 2016).
Furthermore, investigations of the reports of the children born from the female prisoners explains how the kids experience a range of psychosocial issues amid the detainment of a parent, including: sorrow, hyperactivity, forceful conduct, withdrawal, relapse, sticking conduct, rest issues, eating issues, fleeing, truancy, poor school grades and delinquency. Besides this, parental division can be experienced as departure or deserting, which can compound misery for youngsters.
Challenges in accessing justice
According to the reports found in the governmental publications and in the news analysis, female prisoners belonging from the poor and the lower sections of the society face immense challenges towards fair and equitable access justice (Coyle & Fair, 2018). The challenges and the difficulties of the female prisoners are intensified by some of the many factors that are directly connected to their gender.
These factors raise questions on the rights of female prisoners for the right of the fair trial and the right of the recognition before the law as per article 6 enshrined in the Universal Declaration of the Human rights (Rubenstein et al., 2016).
Women in prison tend to receive multiple layers of the discrimination both directly and indirectly that sometimes result in extreme level of vulnerability and challenging the factors of the system of the criminal justice (Danjuma, Nordin & Sale, 2019).
A large portion of the female prisoners furthermore lack the opportunity for hiring any lawyers and often are unaware regarding their share of the human rights as the prisoners.
This illiteracy and the lack of awareness for their human rights places the female prisoners in the vulnerable position of signing statements that have some of the major or serious legal implications and are open towards coercion.
The lack of the legal help furthermore leads the prisoners in low chance of defendants and rising opportunities for the caring and the responsibilities for the children of the female prisoners who were born in the prison (Coyle & Fair, 2018).
Women prisoners are furthermore prone to sexual abuse and other major forms of violence in case of the detention that are sometimes used for forcing them to confess some of the offense that they might not have committed.
There have been numerous reports relating to the signing of the statements often with thumbprints by illiterate women prisoners who does not know about the content of the statements leading them towards further challenges of getting justice and fair trial opportunities for bail.
In a few social orders the cross examination tends to threaten ladies having inadequate contact with influential men. This additionally contains a risk of sexual misuse, regardless of whether such a danger is figured it out (Sikkink, 2018).
There has been some of the major scenarios in the case of the non resident women prisoners belonging from foreign nations who are especially vulnerable in the whole procedure due to their barriers in the language, the lack of the social networks for helping or assisting them and also the lack of the awareness for the policies, the rules and the legal rights as per the norms of Canada and are thus prone towards extreme vulnerability towards abuse.
Conclusion
Women constitute one of the most vulnerable groups of people in the prisons. Although there lies some of the considerable range of the variations in this situation in different countries, this essay highlights the condition of the female prisoners of the Canada and the challenges faced by them on the evidence of the violation of their basic human rights during their imprisonment.
The female prisoners as per the report by the prison association suffer more than the male and the other general population in the context of the mental and physical health inside the prison. Women in the prison generally tend to have more health requirements that are specific as compared to the male prisoners.
The requirements and needs of the women prisoners are different from their male prisoners. Women in prison tend to need some of the facilities that are gender specific in nature for their health care for helping them in case of childbirth, for caring for the children in prison and receiving help in case of the possibility of sexual assault and rape.
Women prisoners in the United States tend to suffer frequently from issues and challenges of mental health that includes post traumatic disorder of stress, self-harming and self-destruction, depression , anxiety and more.
Among wide range of the challenges in the context of acquiring proper rights of the female prisoners , three most important evident evidences have been highlighted and analysed in the essay that includes the lack of support from the families, the lack of proper health care facilities of the female prisoners and the challenges faced by the female prisoners towards getting justice on fair and equal basis as compared to the men of the country.
The essay furthermore highlighted the factor that illiteracy and the lack of awareness for their human rights places the female prisoners in the vulnerable position of signing statements have some of the major or serious legal implications.
References
Abbott, P. A. (2018). The health needs and healthcare experiences of women leaving prison.
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Clark, K. A., Hughto, J. M. W., & Pachankis, J. E. (2017). “What’s the right thing to do?” Correctional healthcare providers’ knowledge, attitudes and experiences caring for transgender inmates. Social Science & Medicine, 193, 80-89.
Coyle, A., & Fair, H. (2018). A human rights approach to prison management: Handbook for prison staff. Institute for Criminal Policy Research Birkbeck, University of London.
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