without professionals. This can be very harmful to the rehabilitation process. The Committee members know very little about rehabilitation and are more concern about their personal welfare. Third, there are very few women on most of the Committees. This might explain why women issues are not given attention. Fourth, the Committee system may also lead to corruption. It may encourage some prison authorities to withhold money meant for prisoners because they assume the Committees will deal with everything. If this succeeds, the authority might use the money for his/her personal business. These shortcomings notwithstanding, the Committee system seems to be an interesting system to experiment in other African prisons. Caution must however be taken not to overburden the prisoners and allow the state to relinquish its responsibility. (b) Relationship with civil society The Special Rapporteur also observed the good working relationship that exists between NGOs, the prison authorities and the prisoners. In all the prisons visited, the authorities are receiving assistance from at least one NGO. Almost all the prisons visited have received assistance or a promise of assistance from the ICRC. Apart from the ICRC, local NGOs such as the Prison Fellowship, the Ethiopian Red Cross, the Forum for Street Children, Ethiopia and the Catholic Mission have been assisting prisoners in various ways. Some NGOs however, think the cooperation between the authorities and civil society could be better and urge the authorities to be more open than they already are. The Special Rapporteur encouraged prison authorities to try to work with all members of civil society, especially NGOs and grant them regular access to prisons so that they can make objective and constructive criticisms of the penal system. She also urged NGOs to support the efforts of the government and make constructive criticisms where necessary and concrete proposals as well. 43 Report of the Mission of the Special Rapporteur on Prisons to Ethiopia 15 – 29 March 2004