Abstract
Throughout China and southeast Asia, people who use drugs are compulsorily detained in government centres in the name of ‘‘treatment’’ or ‘‘rehabilitation’’. These centres are neither prisons nor hospitals: individuals are held without the due process protections common to prisons, such as access to legal counsel, the opportunity to appeal, or judicial oversight of detention. At the same time, they may be detained for years without ever receiving evidence-based drug dependency treatment. Detainees may be held in isolation cells, forced to work, and ill-treated by staff. In some centres, detainees may be tortured with electrical shocks or sexually abused. Individuals are detained without clinical determination of drug dependence, and centres also lock up homeless people, street children, and people with mental illnesses. (Published: 5 December 2012) Pearshouse R and JJ Amon. Journal of the International AIDS Society 2012, 15 :18491 http://www.jiasociety.org/index.php/jias/article/view/18491 | http://dx.doi.org/10.7448/IAS.15.2.18491
Highlights
Individuals in these centres are routinely denied basic health care
Research has referred vaguely to the ‘‘complex’’ legal needs of detainees [12], or mischaracterised their legal status by describing detainees as ‘‘in-patients’’ [14] or ‘‘residents’’ [7]
Our research conducted with former detainees of the same centre, found that they are forced to work without pay for up to eight hours a day manufacturing garments. ‘‘Labour therapy’’ performed on a compulsory basis is a legally mandated component of drug treatment in Vietnam [3]
Summary
Individuals in these centres are routinely denied basic health care. Yet detainees may come in contact with health professionals: they may be subject to mandatory HIV testing [2], forced to donate blood [4], or they may participate in scientific research, sometimes involuntarily [6]. While involuntary research is clearly unethical, there has been little discussion of the ethical considerations of research on individuals in extra-judicial compulsory drug detention centres. A fundamental requirement for scientists conducting such research should be to accurately describe the status of research participants and the research setting.
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