Keynote address II: Mental Health and Human Rights in Detention Centres

18 April, 2024, Amsterdam

Dear guests, dear colleagues,

It is a pleasure to address you today on behalf of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. My name is Elena Kountouri Tapiero, and I am the acting Representative of the UN Office for Human Rights in Europe. I thank the World Health Organization Europe for the invitation, as well as other co-organizers for continuing to push for a human rights-based approach to health care, including mental health care, in prisons and other places of deprivation of liberty.

Let me start by quoting the title of an article in the Economist magazine this week “death at the exit: prisoner’s health” which cites a Dutch study that found that prison has no net effect on inmates’ pre-existing health. The article says that basically if you go in unwell, you come out unwell and unprepared for what awaits outside jail.