Amapá's prison agency pepper-sprays women in their cells, underfeeds them and leaves pregnant prisoners without prenatal care, Brazil's anti-torture body found.
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Brazil's National Mechanism for the Prevention and Combat of Torture (MNPCT) inspected the Amapá state women's penitentiary (COPEF), run by the Instituto de Administração Penitenciária do Amapá (IAPEN), on 16 June 2025 and published its report in April 2026. It found what it called a systemic, institutionalised pattern of practices that may amount to torture: official incident records confirming pepper spray used without any security threat, including at night inside cells; food that fails national nutrition standards combined with a ban on family food parcels; forced humiliating postures; threats by staff; and pregnant women with no prenatal follow-up, one losing 7.5 kg in under three months. It said the unit's manager demanded the inspection stop and the team leave, that two women in custody at the unit died in August 2025 after the inspection, and that the conditions had persisted five years since its 2020 inspection, suggesting state authorities' possible connivance or omission. Authorities were given 60 days to submit an action plan.
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