The Israel Prison Service has imprisoned a heavily pregnant Ghanaian worker and is keeping her in isolation, Israeli media reported earlier this week.
Jossephine Kwabiwaa, 32, was placed in isolation four months ago because she refused to be tested for tuberculosis. Kwabiwaa said she was afraid of taking the tests, which include X-rays, out of concern that radiation could affect her pregnancy.
Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI) is demanding that Kwabiwaa be moved from isolation so she can receive proper medical care. “For four months, no one on the Israel Prison Service’s medical staff who met Jossephine alerted anyone about the harm that could be caused to her as a result of her isolation or demand that it end,” says Anat Lidvin, director of the Physicians for Human Rights’ Department for Prisoners.
“This case shows how the Israel Prison Service violates the rights of prisoners and endangers their health and lives. Government authorities must work to transfer the responsibility of medical care for prisoners from the Israel Prison Service to a body that knows medicine and that can provide treatment in line with accepted standards in the public health system in Israel while maintaining the rules of ethical medicine,” Lidvin told an Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.
It has also emerged that Kwabiwaa has been forced to pay for medical examinations and pregnancy supplements, like folic acid and iron. The cost of some of her pregnancy checks has been taken out of funds that she was supposed to use to purchase food items at the prison canteen.
Kwabiwaa’s treatment has sparked outrage in Ghana. “Israel’s treatment of Jossephine Kwabiwaa is racist and inhumane. Israel says it cares for Africa, but its long history of racism against Africans tells a very different story,” said Ghanaian legislator, Ras Mubarak, in an interview with the Afro-Palestine Newswire Service. Mubarak will be following up on the case with the relevant authorities.
The World Medical Association and the United Nations have condemned placing pregnant women in isolation as this could severely hurt their physical and mental health and potentially harm the foetus. Israel, however, has a long history of detaining pregnant women – particularly Palestinians – and holding them in isolation.
The Palestinian prisoner and support group, Addameer, reports that Israel does not give pregnant prisoners preferential treatment in terms of diet, living space or hospital transfers. During hospital transfers, the woman’s hands and feet are shackled with metal chains and chained to their beds until they enter the delivery room, and are shackled immediately after giving birth.
In 1987, during one of the most horrific cases documented, Naila Ayesh was hooded and beaten during interrogation, deprived of sleep and left outdoors in winter. She miscarried and was denied medical treatment.
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3 Foreign Nationals caught with R1 Million worth of Stolen Goods headed to Zimbabwe. Goods worth over R1 Million were recovered today when 3 foreign nationals were caught in a Toyota Quantum headed to Zimbabwe.
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