Transgender detainee's complaints of ill treatment remain in limbo

An attempt to challenge arrest and detention policies for transgender people in court has yet to get off the ground, a year after a woman said she suffered mistreatment during her arrest, detention and imprisonment.

The 20-year-old woman said she was strip-searched three times by male officers - once with eight other male officers ridiculing her - was refused the hormonal treatment that she had been on since age 12, and was thrown into solitary confinement for a week.

She is being held at the Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre, which is reserved for the mentally ill, while an application for legal aid to launch a judicial review challenging the detention of transgender people is still pending despite being filed in January.

Patricia Ho, a solicitor with Daly & Associates handling the case, said the wait was frustrating. The woman's experience presented a strong case illustrating problematic policies in procedures for arrest, detention and imprisonment, Ho said.

"It's been going on for so long … It is clearly inhumane treatment," she said.

The woman's ordeal began in the middle of last year when she was arrested and charged for trafficking a dangerous drug, possession of apparatus intended for the inhalation of a dangerous drug and breach of conditions of stay. She was later jailed for 24 months.

After her arrest, she allegedly suffered her first strip-search by two police officers, and then again at the Pik Uk Correctional Institution, where a male doctor conducted a check-up in an open room while eight officers allegedly made fun of her.

Then at Siu Lam, she was checked again by a male officer. The whole process was degrading and traumatising, Ho said.

Later, the woman was put into seven days' solitary confinement at Pik Uk, unable to go out even for toilet breaks, the lawyer claims.

Over eight months in detention, she was also denied hormonal treatment despite multiple requests, including those made by NGO Midnight Blue and lawyers. The withholding of hormones caused physical and psychological effects, Ho said.

Midnight Blue project coordinator Rain Lo Lan-wai, who has been in touch with the woman, said: "It's rare to have a transgender person with such a long sentence. It's only in this case [that] we can see the full negative effects of current policies on transgender inmates." Lo said she knew of 32 transgender people being jailed since 2013.

The solicitor queried whether it was right to put transgender people in a psychiatric ward with mentally ill patients.

Lo said arrested transgender people should also be given a choice of whether to be searched by a male or female officer.

A spokeman for the Correctional Services Department gave the following reply: "Under normal circumstances, the Correctional Services Department identifies the gender of persons in custody (PICs) according to their identification documents. Treatment including accommodation and searching will be arranged in accordance with the identified gender of PICs.

"If a PIC requests for special arrangements other than the general treatment, it will be considered by the penal management according to individual merits and [the] expertise of medical officer, clinical psychologist or psychiatrist as appropriate.
 
"In general, transgendered PICs will be accommodated in the Vulnerable Prisoner Unit (VPU) of Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre to protect them from being disturbed by other PICs.
 
As at 8.5.2015, there is one transgendered PIC under the custody of CSD [who] is currently located at the VPU of Siu Lam Psychiatric Centre."

A police spokesman said the force determined people's sex based on information stated on their identity documents.