Rome: Italy's north-central Tuscany region will soon open a prison to house about 30 transgender detainees in a move praised by gay and transgender rights advocates, an official has said.
The prison, to be located on an olive grove in the Tuscan town of Empoli, will be the first of its kind in Italy and will open in late March, Maria Pia Giuffrida, a detention administration official, told reporters.
The former halfway house for women will take in 30 detainees who are currently held in a special section of a prison on Sollicciano, outside Florence.
The grounds also include a greenhouse, an athletic field and a library which Giuffrida said were "very satisfactory".
"It's a great idea," Regina Satariano, head of the Italian Movement for Transgender Identity, told the ANSA news agency. "The facility will motivate the 'trans' to get involved in social reintegration programmes."
She added: "It will not be a ghetto but a way to avoid the experience of isolation in ordinary prisons."
Aurelio Mancuso, president of the gay rights group Arcigay, said: "It's a piece of good news that puts into practice" the collaboration of Tuscany's administration with transgender advocacy groups.
Satariano said that "women in prison don't want 'trans' co-detainees, and to avoid problems they are not housed with men either. Spaces are created for them in prisons, but it amounts to isolation."
PTI
First Published: Thursday, January 28, 2010, 10:48