5 March, 2011. Advocacy Forum has recorded a significant overall increase in the percentage of custodial torture between July and December 2010. The trend is 6.7% higher as compared to January to June 2010 which was recorded at 15.8 %.
AF’s semiannual briefing “Recent Trends and Patterns of Torture in Nepal” has attributed this increase to the ongoing political instability in the country and growing activities of armed groups in several districts of Terai region. Among others, there has been a significant increase in the percentage of torture on female detainees, which increased from 7% during January to June 2010 to 13.3%.
“The 25 women who claimed they had been tortured had been severely beaten by investigating officers and had been treated without consideration for the rights and needs of women as a particularly vulnerable group. Similarly, 26.7% of juvenile detainees claimed that they were subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, an increase of nearly 6% in comparison to the period from January to June 2010 when the percentage was 20.9%, “the report says.
In total, AF lawyers interviewed 2183 detainees in 57 detention centers. Among them were 188 (8.6%) women and 1993 (91.3%) men. Of them, 492 detainees (22.5%) have claimed that they were subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Among the women detainees, 25 (13.3%) claimed they were subjected to torture or other ill-treatment, as opposed to 466 (23.4%) of men and 1 (50.0%) from third gender.
The report is based on the information gathered by AF attorneys during their visits to 57 detention centers in 20 AF working districts. The main aims of these visits are to assist the police to implement its constitutional obligations to prevent torture and other ill-treatment and ensure redress in the event of torture occurring.
The large majority of places of detention visited are District Police Offices (DPOs) and Area Police Offices (APOs) as they are the places where those under arrest are usually brought for interrogation and the place where the victims are often compelled to confess to certain crimes under torture.
