WUNRN
The Organization
of American States - OAS - brings together all 35 independent states of the Americas and
constitutes the main political, juridical, and social governmental forum in the
hemisphere.
"In
the Americas, a higher proportion of women than men are arrested for
drug-related crimes."
OAS ADDRESSES THE GROWING INCIDENCE
OF WOMEN IN PRISON IN THE AMERICAS FOR DRUG-RELATED CRIMES
June 3, 2013 - The Organization of American States (OAS) has
expressed concern at the growing incidence of women being arrested for
drug-related crimes in the Americas.
OAS Secretary General José Miguel Insulza noted in opening a roundtable on
“Women, drugs, and human rights in the Americas,” on Monday, that “the issue of
drugs has a strong gender dimension that is still very visible in the
investigations and reports produced to date.”
He said “media coverage and what little information we have do suggest that
women’s involvement in marketing drugs has increased significantly.”
A joint initiative of the Inter-American Commission of Women (CIM) and the
Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD), the roundtable was held
at the Spanish Cooperation Training Center in La Antigua, Guatemala, ahead of
Tuesday’s formal opening of the forty-third regular session of the OAS General
Assembly.
The OAS leader argued that the fact that poverty leads women to consider
selling and trafficking in drugs as an option for providing for their families
is nothing new in the region. But, he warned, recent years have seen a
significant rise in drug-related crimes in which women, girls, and adolescents
are taking a more active and lead role.
“In fact, a higher proportion of women than men are arrested for drug-related
crimes. In Mexico, for example, 80 percent of the female prison population is
there for drug-related crimes, compared to 57 percent for men. In Argentina,
between 80 and 87 percent of female inmates are in prison for drug crimes. In
Quito, Ecuador, 80 percent of the female inmates are serving drug
trafficking-related sentences. And in Iquique, Chile, 80 percent of the women
in prison are there for drug-related crimes,” Secretary General Insulza
explained.
In her presentation, Guatemala’s Vice President, Roxana Baldetti, described
most women in prison as “young, poor, illiterate, single mothers,” who are
often arrested for trying to take drugs into prisons for their partners.
Furthermore, she noted, while 48 percent of women in prison in Latin America
are there for drug-related crimes, the figure for men is just 15 percent.
Praising the recently-released Report on the Drug Problem in the Americas,
prepared under the direction of the OAS Secretary General, Vice President
Baldetti proposed the establishment of an OAS body to address the needs of this
segment of the female population, to prevent them from being used by gangs that
control the illegal drug trade. The Vice President said the entity she was
proposing should develop a plan with social policies that take into account
aspects related to public health and economic and environmental policies.
President of the Commission of Women, Maureen Clarke, said that an assessment
of the problem of women and drugs in the Americas was in the making. Recalling
that the CIM began working on the issue in late 2012, Clarke noted that the CIM
was conducting a two-stage analysis of the issue: “The first is a compilation
of existing literature, and the second phase is to collect information from the
OAS member states, to which end the CIM has sent questionnaires to a number of
national women’s affairs agencies, to national security authorities, and to
national drug authorities.” She said the CIM hoped to have this assessment
ready in the second half of 2013.
Clarke also referred in her remarks to social problems stemming from the
incarceration of women, saying that when a man is incarcerated, the family
generally remains together, but when a woman is sent to jail the family usually
falls apart. She therefore called for “a more comprehensive perspective on what
incarcerating women entails.”
For her part, the Executive Secretary of the CIM, Carmen Moreno, underscored
the lack of information on the subject, the results of which is that the media
have become the primary source of information. “Generally speaking, whether for
men or women, we know very little about the people involved in the drug
problem. As in other areas, we understand even less about the involvement of
women and we tend to interpret it through assumptions and stereotypes that
complicate proper understanding of the social, economic, and cultural factors
and have an adverse effect on women in terms of assigning them stigmatized
roles.” Ambassador Moreno revealed that an investigation conducted by the CIM
in the countries of the region argues that in most cases women arrested for
drug problems are arrested for nonviolent crimes.
Meanwhile, the Permanent Observer of Spain to the OAS, Javier Hevia, said that
“it is important to find a gender perspective in anti-drug policies,” adding
that in Spain, “of the 6,500 female inmates, 45 percent are arrested because of
drug problems.” Ambassador Hevia, who hosted the event, stated that “promoting
women’s rights and gender equality is a key development objective of the Master
Plan for Spanish Cooperation 2013-2016.”
Several permanent representatives to the OAS and a number of women’s rights
activists took part in the roundtable, which also included an interdisciplinary
debate on “Women, drugs, and human rights in the Americas.”