International Health care Standards in Women`s Prisons in the Arab world

Prison health care services worldwide fail to meet women prisoners` gender-specific needs. Gender-sensitive prison laws and policies are absent or weak at national levels in many parts of the world. Consequently, health care for women in prisons has become a matter of increasing concern. This thesis is about the international healthcare standards that aim to protect women prisoners’ rights to receive treatment met their distinctive needs. Interviews were conducted with 42 individuals in Jordan to explore the implementation of these standards in the Arab world. The research makes a new contribution by collecting and analysing data on an issue characterised by a paucity of contemporary empirical evidence. Little is known about how international healthcare standards work in practice, particularly in the Arab world, where a variety of cultural, economic, political and social factors have impacted on the way in which they are viewed and implemented. The research reveals that international standards are not systematically implemented because they are viewed as a Western construction that attempts to impose Western perspectives on other countries and fails to take into account Arab culture and traditions relating to women’s position in society.