Prisons
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The lapse in ethics when housing women in Swiss prisons.
Allowing male prisoners to be housed in female prisons or prison units poses severe risks to the safety and dignity of incarcerated women and is ethically unjustifiable.
In January 2024, 6881 people were detained in Swiss prisons, of which 365 (5.7%) were women. There are three establishments exclusively for women (Dielsdorf, Hindelbank, La Tuilière), and 23 mixed establishments with special units for women.
In its 2024 analysis of the National Prevention Mechanism, the National Commission for the Prevention of Torture (NCPT) recommended that women “should only be detained in small mixed facilities that meet their specific needs”. The NCPT added that, since January 2007, article 46, para.1 of the Swiss Criminal Code, which provided for the separation of men and women in penal institutions, is no longer formally in force, however, “the separation of women and men in closed prisons is still applied without exception.” Surprisingly, the NCPT made no mention of the presence of a male prisoner in a Swiss women’s prison, an incident which occurred in 2022. This incident was reported in the news on Swiss Television (SRF, November 22, 2022; RTS, December 3, 2022).
Indeed, in 2022, a man was placed in a women’s prison in Dielsdorf/ZH, following the decision of its director, Simone Keller da Cunha Sarandão. She said: “Es geht um die Identität” (“it’s about [his] identity”). The man identified as a woman. After he was arrested in September 2022, he was initially housed in the men’s prison of Stans/NW. But Stans’s prison director, Stephan Rohr, said that he and his staff were not properly equipped to accommodate such a man. He and his staff had been informed by the responsible prosecutor’s office that the male prisoner wanted to be addressed as a woman. Apparently, in the men’s prison, the prisoner isolated himself, and director Stephan Rohr was worried he and his staff didn’t have enough resources to create an appropriate community for him.
The prisoner, who had intact male genitalia, was then transferred to a women’s prison. The media never revealed what kind of crime he had committed, so it could have even been sexual assault or rape. The article in SRF just wrote: “Insbesondere trans Personen sind (…) im Freiheitsentzug vulnerable.” (“Trans people in particular are (...) vulnerable when deprived of their liberty”). The article in RTS wrote exactly the same: “Dans le monde carceral, les personnes transgenres sont particulièrement à risque (…) » (« In prison, transgender people are particularly at risk »), in order to explain the transfer of a male prisoner to a women’s prison. The RTS article also mentioned the recent document that provides guidance on dealing with incarcerated “trans” people: “Depuis l’an dernier, il existe un document cadre en Suisse.” (RTS, December 3, 2022).
Unsurprisingly, female prisoners strongly complained about the move once the male detainee arrived at the women’s prison. Consequently, the prisoner expressed a desire to be placed back in a men’s prison. However, the female inmates’ reaction to discovering the presence of a male prisoner among them was not reported by all media; RTS journalists preferred not to report the incident, and insisted that there was no problem at all. They wrote: “[he] was perfectly able to integrate.“ (“[Il] a parfaitement été capable de s’intégrer.”) (RTS, December 3, 2022)
How can a man be place in a women's prison, since prisons are sex-segregated?
The Swiss Center of Competence for the Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions (SKJV/CSPSP), based in Fribourg, published a document in June 2021, with the title “Die Betreuung von LGBTIQ+ Personen im Freiheitsentzug” (“Care of LGBTIQ+ people in detention”). This document states that the “transgender” detainee’s self-determination of “gender identity” takes precedence, and that he (or she) should therefore choose whether to be placed in a men’s or a women’s prison.
Femina Helvetica’s view on this document is as follows:
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The document claims to offer an insight into issues faced by “LGBTIQ+ people” (lesbians, gay men, bisexuals, “transgender” people, intersex and queer) in detention, but in reality, it only addresses issues faced by men.
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At no point does the document address the concerns of female prisoners. Women are ignored, save a brief mention of lesbians (only to illustrate the L of LGBTIQ+). The document fails to show understanding of the reality that women face.
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As the paper is based on testimonies of staff who mainly work in men’s prisons, their observations are based on the behaviour and situations of male prisoners in men’s prisons.
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The document addresses prison violence only in the context of male-on-male violence—against gay men and men who identify as women—but makes no mention of male violence against female prisoners, such as a man who claims to be a woman assaulting a woman in a female prison.
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International and Swiss standards require that body searches be conducted by staff of the same sex as the detained person (Criminal Code, Art. 85, para. 2). However, the Swiss Center of Competence for the Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions recommends that men who claim to be women may choose the sex of the officer performing the search. Once again, the document completely disregards the perspective and dignity of female staff. It is unacceptable to compel a female prison officer to perform an intimate search on a male prisoner. No solutions are proposed that would protect the dignity and privacy of female officers.
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The document mentions a recommendation by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture (CPT), which stipulates that if a man who claims to be a woman is incarcerated in a men’s unit, he should be offered activities that allow him to come into contact with detainees belonging to the sex he pretends to be, i.e. female. Femina Helvetica does not believe that male prisoners should have a special right to socialize with women.
We are of the opinion that international institutions, such as the United Nations and the European Commission, as well as Swiss institutions, should refrain from using the acronym “LGBTIQ+”, as it does not refer to a homogenous group of people. Each letter represents a group of people with specific interests (lesbian, gay, bisexual, “trans”, intersex, “queer” along with the undefined ‘+’), but these interests rarely align.
A frequently cited justification for transferring men who claim to be women in female prisons is that these men would be unsafe in men’s prisons.
Femina Helvetica believes that it is the role of these prisons to protect men who are at risk. It is not the responsibility of women to open up their spaces to men.
The National Commission for the Prevention of Torture (NCPT), in its 2024 analysis, wrote that “women’s needs are very different from those of men” because of their sex-specific characteristics. Men must be excluded from female prisons to keep those spaces safe for women.
According to the man who was housed in a female prison in Dielsdorf in 2022, he had felt isolated in the men’s prison, yet women in mixed-sex facilities can also suffer from isolation. The National Commission for the Prevention of Torture (NCPT) confirms that female prisoners are more frequently subjected to discrimination. In mixed prisons, such as those in Delémont and Schaffhausen, women often spend 23 hours a day in their cells and carry out work activities there, whilst being required to perform stereotypically female tasks (embroidery, ironing, applying false nails). Sports facilities are often smaller or less accessible to women; at Zurich Prison, female inmates have to share the sports field with male inmates and therefore have only limited access to the exercise yard.
The National Commission for the Prevention of Torture (NCPT) considers that these mixed prisons are “not suitable for women’s detention”. According to the Swiss Criminal Code, Art. 74, the “human dignity of the prison inmates (…) must be respected” while “account is taken of the gender-specific concerns and needs of the prison inmates”, (Swiss Criminal Code, Art. 75. para. 5). Therefore, women’s dignity can only be respected by men being kept out of their prison or unit.
The result of the revision of the process to change one’s sex in the civil status register in 2022 is that any man can now easily change the sex marker on his official documents to “female” by a simple declaration before the registrar.
Femina Helvetica demands that no man, regardless of the sex stated in his legal documents, should be placed in a women's prison or a women's unit.
Links to supporting documentation:
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National Commission for the Prevention of Torture’s rapport on Women in prison in Switzerland (July 2024)
https://www.apt.ch/sites/default/files/2024-12/switzerland_-_fr_0.pdf -
Swiss Centre of Competence for the Enforcement of Criminal Sanctions’ document called “Caring for LGBTIQ+ people in deprivation of liberty” dating 2021 (Here the German version).
https://www.skjv.ch/sites/default/files/documents/Die_Betreuung_von_LGBTIQ_Personen_im_Freiheitsentzug_Grundlagenpapier.pdf -
The RTS article “Les personnes transgenres incarcérées font face à un risque élevé de violence” (Incarcerated transgender people face a high risk of violence) published in the French-speaking news on Swiss Television, RTS, December 3, 2022
https://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/13591395-les-personnes-transgenres-incarcerees-font-face-a-un-risque-eleve-de-violence.html -
The SRF article “Trans Frau im Männergefängnis” (A trans woman in men’s prison) published in the German-speaking news on Swiss Television, SRF, November 22, 2022
https://www.srf.ch/news/schweiz/lgbtqi-im-gefaengnissen-trans-frau-im-maennergefaengnis