Women allege abuse at Georgia’s Stewart Detention Center – Workers World

Activists demonstrate to shut down the Stewart Detention Center, Lumpkin, Georgia, November 2014.

Atlanta

July 17 – Once again, a privately run immigrant detention center in Georgia is at the center of allegations of abuse by several female inmates.

A male orderly employed by CoreCivic at the Stewart Detention Center (SDC) in Lumpkin, Georgia was named in an official complaint with the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Civil Rights and Liberties.

Four women held at the SDC between late 2021 and early 2021 2022 have described their terrifying encounters with the nurse who demanded they come backmove their shirts and, in at least one case, a bra to check their hearts with a stethoscope while touching their bare skin. One woman said he put his penis in her hand and told her to pull down her pants.

They reported other highly sexualized movements and facial expressions he made while allegedly examining them for an injured wrist or an upset stomach.

Two of them immediately reported his behavior to the prison officers, who then subjected them to several harsh interrogations, repeatedly accused them of lying and threatened them with seven years in prison for making false accusations. The other two, fearing reprisals in prison and an extended sentence, came forward from Stewart after their release.

The Southern Poverty Law Center filed the indictment on July 13, along with a number of immigrant advocacy groups. Groups included the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, Project South and El Refugio.

Stewart opened in 2006 as a male-only facility, one of the largest prisons in the country. The failure to provide adequate medical care, edible food and sanitation conditions quickly brought it to the attention of immigrant rights activists.

For years, Georgia Detention Watch and its constituents have held demonstrations at Lumpkin and ICE’s Atlanta headquarters, written detailed reports, and initiated meetings and tours by elected officials at the facility. They also informed the public about CoreCivic, the for-profit private company that makes tens of millions of dollars in immigrant detention.

Since late 2020, women have been accommodated at Stewart. This followed the explosive revelation that women at the Irwin Detention Center in Ocilla, Georgia, had undergone unnecessary gynecological procedures without their consent. The federal government canceled its ICE contract with Irwin’s private prison operator and began sending women to Stewart in late 2020.

Due to lack of medical care and suicide, Stewart already had a reputation for being the deadliest ICE prison in the countryit. Then COVID-19 deaths cemented this brutal reality.

CoreCivic claims its investmentsfromInquiries into the sexual abuse allegations found them “unfounded” and “unfounded”.

The male nurse was still employed by Stewart in May.

A press conference was held on July 15 in front of ICE’s Atlanta office. Speakers demanded that the women who spoke out so bravely be believed and that Stewart be shut down now.

For more information, see the July 14 Intercept article, The Worst Day of My Life.