Transgender Female Prisoners Compensated For Being Locked Up With Males At Kordin

Transgender prisoners were granted €5,000 compensation for discrimination they experienced while incarcerated in Malta. 

The seven women were kept in the men’s prison because at the time their identity cards stated that they were males, however they had been living as women.

These women opened a case against the Prison Director for treating them as male prisoners and explained in court how he ignored the fact that they identify and look like women in their daily lives.

Some of them even received their Identity Card change while they were in prison, while others where waiting for the plea to be processed. Even though this change happened, the Prison Director still kept them in the men’s quarters. 

The courts also heard how the women were subjugated to sexual harassment, along with physical and emotional abuse by other male prisoners they were locked up with, so much so that on some days they couldn’t even take showers. They had to come up with new ways to avoid washing with the male prisoners by either going later or not showering at all. 

Five of these women were given the choice of being moved to the women’s section after a while, but that meant not getting paid for the work they were doing in prison — which also meant not having any more money to purchase their hormonal supplements. 

The Prison Director stated that he gave them their own cells and the permission to shower at different times from the rest of the prisoners. The Court stated that these women had been living in prison for quite long, thus they suffered these injustices for a long period of time. 

When some of them were eventually moved to the women’s section, they were given bloody mattresses and placed in a spare room where junk was kept. 

The Court decided to ask the director to pay a monetary compensation of €4,000 and an additional €1,000 for defilement of dignity.

Do you think that they should’ve been placed in the women’s facility? Comment below

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