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via CAAI News Media
Drug rehabilitation centers in Cambodia are being used to torture and extort money from detainees, according to a report released Monday by the international human rights group Human Rights Watch. The group alleges that the government-run detention centers are not rehabilitating drug users but instead holding them illegally, often at the request of inmates' families.
"I think this is not a rehab center but a torturing center," one former detainee told the group.
The report accuses the centers of using "sadistic violence" to operate. Another former detainee, M'noh, 16, said that one drug center staff member beat people with whips made of twisted-together electric wires.
"One cable was the size of a little finger, one is the size of a thumb and one is the size of a toe. He would ask which you prefer. On each whip the skin would come off and stick on the cable," M'noh said.
Other detainees described being beaten, shocked with electric batons and fed rotten or insect-infested food. Some were forced to donate blood. The findings were so brutal that the report includes a glossary at the beginning explaining slang terms like "eat ice cream" (to perform oral sex) and "eating betel nut" (a punishment where a detainee is forced to run into a wall until his mouth bleeds).
Human Rights Watch interviewed 74 informants between February and July last year. Most of those interviewed had been held in a drug detention center in the last three years, and 13 of them were under 18.
"Individuals in these centers are not being treated or rehabilitated; they are being illegally detained and often tortured," said Joseph Amon, Human Rights Watch's director for health and human rights, in a statement. "These centers do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down."
Although only 15 of the 2,382 inmates reportedly detained last year in government centers were female, incidents of rape were reported. A drug user named Trabek reported seeing several gang rapes at one facility, including the rape of a mute woman. A woman in her mid-20s, called Minea in the report, said she was set free by the police only after having sex with two police officers.
"[The police] drove me to a guest house. .... How can you refuse to give him sex? You must do it," she told Human Rights Watch.
The report found at least 11 drug rehabilitation centers in Cambodia. It says about half of those detained are rounded up by police or other authorities. If they come from wealthy families, they can often bribe the police for their release. The other half are sent to the centers at the request of family members, which is legal under Cambodian law. Only 1 or 2 percent go to drug rehab willingly.
"The real motivations for Cambodia's drug detention centers appear to be a combination of social control, punishment for the perceived moral failure of drug use, and profit," Human Rights Watch concludes.
In the past decade, the use of methamphetamines in Cambodia has increased significantly, according to the report. The majority of drug users are between 18 and 25 and are mostly male. Along with the homeless, prostitutes, beggars, street children and the mentally ill, drug users in Cambodia are considered "undesirables" and are often arbitrarily arrested to "clean the city."
Read the full report at Human Rights Watch.
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