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A Uruguayan child rights NGO has denounced the alleged use of torture, physical and psychological punishment of detainees held in a young offenders’ unit in Colonia Berro, a rural area 45 kilometres from the capital, Montevideo. Luis Pedernera, Coordinator of the Committee on the Rights of the Child – Uruguay, has called for the closure of the facility following a visit made with Rosa María Ortiz, a member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. The litany of abuses reported by detainees include being punched by several adults at the same time, being beaten to the ground, having a stick inserted into the anus, and having their faces covered with ants. The report details the conditions in Colonia Berro, where some 250 detainees are forced to spend 23 hours a day in their cell, making them dependent on staff for all their needs. Punishment is meted out for having a shower or washing their clothes without permission and refusing to return to their cell. Healthcare in the centre is seriously lacking; detainees are visited by psychiatrists who give them medication supposedly to help ease drug addiction and sleeping problems. However, according to the report, those held there appear highly medicated and dazed. On one occasion a boy saved up all his medication and, when his family did not arrive at the start of visiting hours and officials ‘joked’ that they were not coming to see him, he took all the medication at once. Pedernera said that under the current system, young people had been cut off from society. He demanded the use of alternative measures such as community service, that would prioritise education and reintegration over security. The Committee on the Rights of the Child - Uruguay has been monitoring detention conditions for 10 years, and in November 2006 presented a report on the issue to the Inter-American Commission. Civil society organisations in Argentina, Chile and Brazil have expressed similar concerns about conditions in their countries. The Inter-American Commission is currently conducting a thematic study on juvenile justice in Latin America. Further information