Amnesty International reported Monday that authorities in Venezuela, El Salvador and Paraguay have held tens of thousands of people in inadequate state-run quarantine centers. The report deemed the facilities to be a “form of repression.”

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in March, detention centers in Venezuela, El Salvador and Paraguay have held thousands of people in quarantine. In El Salvador, the government quarantined more than 16,000 people. The government in Paraguay quarantined about 8,000 people.

Migrants, refugees, people returning to their countries of origin and low-income communities were disproportionately held by authorities. Often, these containment centers had inadequate food, water and medical care. These spaces often increased the risk of contracting COVID-19. Amnesty reported that the centers lacked “sufficient safeguards against human rights violations,” which could lead to ill-treatment and arbitrary detentions.

According to Amnesty, some people were quarantined for up to a month, well over the 14 days recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). In some countries, people who broke mandatory lockdown were threatened to be placed in containment centers. Quarantine was viewed as a punishment, and the containment centers were viewed as unsafe.

Erika Guevara-Rosas, Americas director at Amnesty International, stated:

Instead of providing the appropriate conditions and safeguards against human rights violations, authorities in Venezuela and El Salvador, in particular, have converted a public health intervention into a punitive response, disproportionately impacting low-income communities, and refugees and migrants returning to their countries of origin.

Amnesty stressed that authorities should only hold people in custody when alternative, less invasive measures have failed. State-run quarantines should generally be a last resort. When quarantining people, the government should provide adequate conditions that safeguard against human rights violations. Governments detaining people should allow humanitarian organizations and human rights monitors to monitor the conditions of the detainment spaces, as well as strive to prevent arbitrary detentions.