(COMMON LAW) WHICH ROLE FOR NATIONAL SOCIETIES?
From: “10TH MEDITERRANEAN CONFERENCE” ATHENS, 27 – 31 MARCH 2007
Mr Chairman, distinguished delegates, dear friends,
If during the last centuries living conditions have dramatically improved and human beings have conquered their rights everywhere in our region, this has not happened in detention centres. Both in war and peace situations, both in developing and “developed” countries or in those countries claiming to practice, defend and export human rights, too often prisoners are treated without any respect for their fundamental human rights. If we make a comparison between contemporary times and the Middle Age, we can see that the living condition of detainees is the only reality that has almost not changed ever since. In too many modern democracies, in too many countries, detention systems are not at the level of civilization they should be nowadays.
Traditionally, jails are conceived and structured as a form of punishment, and are normally associated to violence. Overcrowded cells, promiscuity, situations of violence and inhuman conditions of life – marking people’s life forever – are regularly reported in Italy as well as in many other countries in the Mediterranean and in the rest of the world. I remember that we were discussing about that with Dr. Javornik and our Croatian friends in Cavtat, Croatia, last year, and I am very happy to be here together today, to stress the need for a stronger Red Cross and Red Crescent commitment in times of peace.
Too often internal codes of conduct are based on the “law of the strongest”, in which it is the most powerful or criminal one to rule (and this is both valid in the relations between warders and detainees and in the relations between detainees and detainees). Too often those who enter detention centres for minor crimes, such as drug users, happen to know what real violence is into these centres, and come out of them as criminals. These conditions go against our Fundamental Principle of Humanity. Restriction of freedom should not justify any oppressive and brutal treatment, and punishment should consist in deprivation of freedom, not in the violation of fundamental human rights. Violence always brings violence.
Our mission is not to judge, our mission is to assist vulnerable people, no matter what the reasons of their vulnerability are. Our mission is to ensure the protection of human rights, to bring Humanity into detention centres and to act according our Fundamental Principles. The individual and his fundamental rights have to stand at the centre of our activities and of our advocacy actions.
To put it into practice, a stronger commitment and a more active role of National Societies when referring to detention centres is needed in times of peace. Not only in the interests of detainees, but in the interest of Governments and civil societies, to which detainees return after having served their sentence.
In our capacity of auxiliary to the Public Authorities, we, as Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, are not supposed to ask ourselves if a particular law is good or bad. We have to respect and follow our national laws. But we can discuss them with our Authorities. We even have the possibility, the moral strength – sometimes the duty – to rise our voice, should our Governments violate the set of international and national Laws regulating human rights. Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies must act according the Fundamental Principle of Neutrality, but shall not be neutral in front of humanitarian needs, discrimination, violence and stigma. It is our Strategy 2010 to say that Activity in favour of the most vulnerable ones and Advocacy on their behalf shall always go together.
The Italian Red Cross has already gone public, and hopes that other National Societies will do the same, when basic human rights are violated. We did that in Lampedusa, where thousands of irregular migrants get every year in the hope of a better future, and are kept detained into unsafe shelters in dangerous health conditions. And I must assure you that living conditions in the transit centre of Lampedusa have improved since then, as well as in other centres for irregular migrants across Italy. I had the honour to accompany ICRC President Prof. Jakob Kellenberger during his visit to the Italian Red Cross run Centre for irregular migrants in Ponte Galeria, at the outskirts of Rome, and to show him how Police can not trespass a door with a Red Cross emblem, giving access to the centre.
In order to adapt to different realities, National Societies could engage themselves in different ways. If on the one hand, each of us should find his way to access detention centres and to humanize them with – for instance – support or recreational activities for target groups, on the other hand, we could all advocate for a more relevant use of alternative forms of treatment and punishment.
If a stronger presence of Red Cross and Red Crescent volunteers and staff into detention centres is a deterrent to inhuman treatment per se, our volunteers and staff should in fact not limit themselves to this presence. In specific cases in which the offence is not particularly serious, or with particular categories of detainees such as minors, drug users, or people being sentenced to house arrests, trained volunteers and staff could play a key role as social workers and tutors, as it happens inside and outside more and more juvenile detention centres around Italy, as Nicola will show us during his presentation, and as it happens with those drug users who are sentenced for less than 4 years, and can have their term converted into therapeutic treatment if demonstrate a real willingness to quit.
Despite the recent pardon law that has freed 19.000, in fact, prisons scenario in Italy is not a reassuring one, and jails continue to be old and inadequate for our times. In Italy, as well as in other countries around the world, drug users represent one third of the total number of detainees.
Detention is not the right answer to their problems.
Alternative detention measures such as house arrest at the Villa Maraini therapeutic community in Rome have proved extremely effective. Former drug users who have completed their programmes are now fully integrated into our society. Some of them started working as peer educators in Villa Maraini, some of them became Red Cross volunteers, many of them are friends of mine.
In Rome, the possibility for drug users to be part of alternative programmes becomes possible in jails, when they get in touch with Red Cross/Villa Maraini volunteers, psychologists and social workers, who started holding support groups for detained drug users back in 1979.
Those who are not in roman jails have the possibility to write us and more than 3.000 letters are received every year by Villa Maraini staff, who provide information, counselling, legal assistance, psychological support and orientation to drug users pending trial, in house arrest or under alternative detention measures, as well as to their families.
As it has been discussed last week in Rome by 35 National Societies coming from all the continents and participating in the High Level Think Tank on Drug Policy, whose final document you can find on your tables, the moment has come to act and to change the traditional approach towards drug users. And I am very happy to see here so many of those who were in Rome last week. We need to advocate for and to adopt a more modern, human and respectful approach, which sees drug users as sick persons and alternative detention measures as an occasion for their rehabilitation.
According to a recent report presented by the Italian Minister of Social Welfare, the percentage of relapses among those benefiting from alternative detention measures is considerably less than that amongst those who are freed up after having served their entire sentence in jail. In 2005, eight years after 9,000 cases of probation where dismissed in 1998, 68% of those who served their sentence in jail had been convicted of new crimes, while the same happened only for 19% of those who had benefited from alternative detention measures.
I want to finish by reminding you that even as free citizens, minors, drug users, women, irregular migrants, people with mental or other diseases, such as HIV/AIDS, are the most vulnerable groups of our societies.
Let me ask you all now to choose one of these groups and to close your eyes for few seconds. Now imagine yourself detained into a cell. Imagine you even know the reasons why you have been detained and the language of your warder, which is very unlikely to be the case. What would you like to see once you have your eyes open? I am sure you would like to see something you know and trust since your childhood, no matter what your country of origin is and where you are in this moment. I am sure you would like to see somebody bearing our Red Cross Red Crescent Emblem on their T-shirt.
Thank you for your attention.