A delegation from the UN Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture (SPT) [official website] called on [press release] the Chilean government Thursday to establish a national independent body to monitor “places of detention.” The SPT monitors how states are meeting their treaty obligations under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) and was in Chile between April 4 and 13 for that purpose. Chile ratified the OPCAT in 2008 and “should have set up a monitoring body known as a National Prevention Mechanism within a year.” The experts expressed concern over the delay and visited police stations, public and privately-run prisons, detention cells in the tribunals, facilities for juveniles and a psychiatric hospital. The experts held confidential and private interviews with detained people, law enforcement officials, and medical staff. Although the delegation expressed that the creation of a national independent body was the “first step” to preventing torture and ill-treatment in detention, the delegation recognized that the country has been promoting technical assistance for the ratification and implementation to states of the Convention against Torture.

Chile has served as a model for Latin America in regards to human rights and social policy innovations. Earlier this month though, UN Special Rapporteur on the right to education, Kishore Singh, called on [JURIST report] Chilean authorities to implement a sustainable model to education. Chile has also begun the process of drafting a new constitution in order to reflect the ideals of democracy and not its dictatorship when the current draft was written. The process began [JURIST report] in October, and the new constitution will be presented to Congress in the second half of 2017. In March 2015 the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights warned [JURIST report] that poverty in Chile remained under the radar for many policy-makers in the country.