Source: Human Rights Watch
(New York) - The United Nations should conduct a thorough review of its support for Cambodia's drug detention centers, Human Rights Watch said today.
Human Rights Watch issued a 93-page report, "Skin on the Cable," on January 25, 2010, with reports of widespread beatings, whippings, and electric shock to detainees, including children and individuals with mental disabilities, in seven Cambodian drug detention centers. In response, several United Nations agencies, including the joint UN program on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), have spoken out about the abuses. But the two UN agencies that work most closely with the government in detention centers and on drug policy, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), have been less vocal.
"UN officials agree that these centers are illegal and abusive," said Joe Amon, health and human rights director at Human Rights Watch. "Now UNICEF and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime need to make clear to the Cambodian government that the centers should be shut down."
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