Forced labour and torture is what drug users face in Chinese ‘rehab’ centres. According to a report released Thursday by Human Rights Watch (HRW), China is incarcerating users for up to seven years in compulsory detention centres.

China's Anti-Drug Law allows police and security forces to routinely detain individuals, including those merely suspected of drug use, and confine them to 'treatment centres'. The rights organisation reports drug users are subjected to beatings, torture and forced labour.

This is done without any trial or judicial oversight.

According to Joe Amon - the Health and Human Rights Division director at HRW – Chinese law says that "drug users should be treated as patients, not criminals." This is because drug use is an "administrative" and not a "criminal" offence in China. In fact, however, they are treated as criminals.

Labour as solution
Amon says it is an "outrageous situation" that allows forced labour as a solution to what is essentially a health issue which could be addressed by placing "voluntary, community based drug-dependency treatment programmes."

While the health authorities in China have scaled up some of the programmes relating to harm reduction, the detention centres remain property of the police. In Amon's view, there are two sides to this - social control and profitability: "These centres are profitable. There's forced labour occurring in them, and that money is not going to the drug users for their transition back into society. It is going into the pockets of the police force and the public security forces."

Accountability
HRW says this is unacceptable in view of the human rights treaties ratified by China, including the ones on torture, inhumane and degrading treatment, on the treatment of prisoners and prohibition of forced labour, all of which are ratified into the country's domestic laws. In that respect, "China is accountable for these abuses", Amon says.

HRW urges China to shut down the drug detention centres and replace them with voluntary, community based programmes. Currently, the rate of individuals being able to reintegrate into society, and remain free of drug use, is less than two per cent, and this stems from the fact that they are treated as prisoners rather than as patients, says HRW.

For Amon, the issue of drug use is "a difficult one for governments around world", and the "abuses occurring in China are outrageous and extreme but [indeed] not unique."