Dozens protest transgender prison treatment

No Pride in Prisons said transgender inmates needed to be kept safe. Photo / Doug Sherring

About 50 people attended a rally in Auckland's Aotea Square today protesting the treatment of transgender inmates in New Zealand prisons.

The rally was organised after an inmate - who has been on hormone treatment to become a woman - was allegedly raped at the privately run prison in Wiri, South Auckland, last Friday.

There have been several other recent alleged incidents in which transgender inmates have been said to be threatened and abused because they were locked up with inmates of a different gender.

Photo / Doug Sherring

Lobby group No Pride in Prisons said transgender inmates needed to be kept safe and policies needed to change to ensure this happened.

Spokesperson Emilie Rakete said the aim of today's rally was to draw public attention to failures in the prison system.

Rakete delivered an emotional and angry speech to the crowd, asking why it has taken so long for police and Corrections to support transgender inmates.

Emilie Rakete. Photo / Doug Sherring

"We shouldn't have to write to the minister and ask for women not to be put in prisons with men," she said.

Corrections Minister Peseta Sam Lotu-Iiga was invited but there was no sign of him at the rally.