Outrage over male officers' strip-search of women convicts
PRISONER'S welfare and women's rights supporters in Canada are livid over the forced stripping of eight female convicts by an all-male riot squad.
An official Correctional Services report had white-washed the events at the Prison for Women, Kingston, Ontario, saying that the women were not stripped by men in April last year.
But last week shocked television viewers watched, from the comfort of home, women aged from 23 to 36 being stripped naked in a dungeon-like prison.
The Emergency Response Team, from Canada's Maximum Security Prison for men nearby, moved from cell to cell, stripping each woman. Some women swore. Others said they should not be stripped by men, or asked - in vain - to be covered or given a smock.
'This isn't necessary,' pleaded one as a man held her to the floor under an inverted clear plastic shield. He carried full riot gear, including Darth Vader-like helmet and face shield. Whenever she turned her head, another man touched or rapped her on the upper arm or shoulder with a long truncheon, ordering: 'Don't move!' At another cell the riot-squad members held a protesting woman face down and cut and tore all her clothes off before body-searching her and shackling her with a chain around the waist.
The videotape that blew away the official report and government credibility was made by Correctional Services staff, presumably to protect them against false allegations by the women. But the videotape boomeranged, not least on Therese Leblanc, the prison's current warden. Ms Leblanc headed the Correctional Services board of investigation which reported that men did not strip the women. Yes, the men were there, said her report, in case they were needed in an emergency.
After that official statement, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's investigative news show, The Fifth Estate, got hold of the tape and broadcast it. The broadcast showed the reactions of prison advisers watching the tape. Some were wide-eyed, literally aghast, at the footage.