Leading women's rights advocacy groups in Thailand urged the authorities to stop forcing pelvic examination on female detainees.
16 women’s rights organisations, such as Friend of Women Foundation, Women Association for Thailand’s Reform (WeMove), Institute of Human Rights and Peace Studies of Mahidol University and Foundation for Sogi Rights and Justice on Friday, 13 May 2916, submitted a joint statement the Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha, the junta leader and Prime Minister, and Gen Paiboon Khumchaya, the Minister of Justice.
In the letter, the group urged the authorities to order the Department of Corrections (DC) to strictly comply with the international standards in performing examination on female detainees.
The group demanded that the examination procedures must be carried out by medical experts and shall be carried out in manners which respect human dignity and rights.
The statement of the group reflected the recent public outcry over the harassment of Kornkanok Khumta, a student activist of the New Democracy Movement (NDM) from Thammasat University, who was sent the Central Women’s Correction Institute (CWCI) in Bangkok last month by the Military Court for participating in an activity to demand investigation of corruption allegations surrounding the construction of the military’s Rajabhakti Park.
Once at the CWCI, Kornkanok was then forced to take off all her clothes in front of many people and to undertake a pelvic examination before she was released.
“I felt like I was an animal or something. The prison staff knew then that I was granted bail, but they didn’t tell me,” Kornkanok wrote on her Facebook account after she was released on 26 April.
The 16 women’s rights organisations concluded that such incident should not have happened to any female detainee, saying that the prison staff should comply with the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders (The Bangkok Rules), which Thailand has ratified, which provides elaborate details on a standardised physical examination procedures and search methods for females detainees.