Human rights training for prison staff

The Afghan Ministry of Justice has embarked on basic training in human rights for key national prison staff in the capital Kabul. The training seeks to establish humane treatment of prisoners in a country where penal standards are poor. According to the ministry, lack of resources and management skills mean the country's crumbling jails fall far short of minimum international standards. "This is a significant development, the training will be an essential component of penal reform in the country," Salam Bakhshi, director of prisons at the Ministry of Justice, told IRIN on Wednesday. Bakhshi said the four-week training package, which started this month, would work with 100 staff every month. Experts from Kabul University, the national police academy and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) are involved in training the prison staff. "The trainees will receive a general overview about penal, criminal and penitentiary matters with a focus on human rights issues," Bakhshi said. Participants that IRIN talked to said they had found the course worthwhile. "According to what we are learning now, there are many issues that we have to seriously consider once we go back to our duty stations," Abdul Jamil, a jailer from the northern Baghlan province, told IRIN at the training centre in Pul-e-Charkhi, Kabul's central prison. But Jamil said most prisons faced serious overcrowding and lack of facilities and that these factors would continue to impact on detainee's human rights. "Unfortunately it will still be challenging to meet minimum international standards in our prisons, we do not have proper buildings and necessary equipment in the prisons across the country," the 35-year-old said. Another issue confronting the nation's penal system is the use of unofficial or private jails. "Unfortunately, we see some prisoners punished, beaten and even locked in other places for weeks before they are sent to official prisons," a staffer who declined to be named, told IRIN. He said trial delays were another serious issue for many inmates in the post-conflict country's prisons. "I have people who have been jailed for over a year with no clear judicial decision on their fate," he noted. Prison reform clearly has a long way to go in Afghanistan. UNODC is the lead agency in implementing reform within the justice and penal system. The agency said it had provided equipment and fees for teachers plus some international experts to boost the justice ministry's capacity. Also UNODC will arrange training for trainers in order to create specialised groups of prisons staff who will then be able to train their colleagues," an official of the UNODC told IRIN. More than 4,600 convicts are currently held in 32 government-run prisons across the country, with thousands more incarcerated under appalling conditions in private facilities often controlled by warlords and local commanders.