The North's Human Rights Commission has issued a damning report into the detention of women and girls in a Northern Ireland prison.
It attacked "endemic failures" in the regime under which girls as young as 14 were held at Mourne House inside top-security Maghaberry Prison in Co Antrim.
And it said the transfer in June this year of female inmates to a male young offenders centre was "entirely inappropriate".
The commission report issued yesterday called for an independent public inquiry into the regime at Mourne House, the deaths of two inmates in 2002 and 2004, and the circumstances in which prison officers were suspended and dismissed following allegations of "inappropriate conduct" with female inmates.
The report "The Hurt Inside - the imprisonment of women and girls in Northern Ireland" was commissioned by the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission following the death of a 19-year-old female prisoner in Mourne House in 2002 and publication of a highly critical Prisons Inspectorate report on the regime in 2003.
The authors, Prof Phil Scraton and Dr Linda Moore, said that far from responding to the criticisms of the inspectors' report, the regime in Mourne House had "deteriorated significantly".
Mr Peter Russell, director general of prisons in Northern Ireland, said he would be studying the recommendations. -(PA)