A/HRC/25/60/Add.1 high-ranking prison official recommends punishment that is ultimately imposed by the Director of the prison and usually consists of an entry in the inmate’s record. Family visits 61. The Prisons Service Act governs communications and visits from family, friends and legal counsel. Pursuant to section 38, prisoners are entitled to a visit from family or friends once every two weeks. However, these visits are closely monitored by prison staff sitting next to the prisoner and taking notes of the conversation. There is no physical contact and conjugal visits are not permitted. In practice, children under 18 are not allowed to visit. The authorities say this is owing to a lack of facilities to enable meaningful family interaction. Inmates serving life sentences or on death row 62. Since 1993 there has been a moratorium on executions. The Special Rapporteur welcomes the white paper by the Government in response to the report of the Constitutional Review Commission, in which the Government accepted the recommendation of the Commission to abolish the death penalty (A/HRC/22/6, para. 123.8). However, that recommendation has not yet been implemented. In November 2013, there were 129 prisoners in Nsawam prison who had been sentenced to death and 12 in Kumasi prison. The majority of inmates serving life sentences were also kept at these two prisons. Death-row prisoners are separated from the general population, are held in small, overcrowded, dark and poorly ventilated cell blocks and show signs of severe mental and physical trauma. They are denied access to any educational or recreational activities. These prisoners and those serving life sentences depend heavily on their families to provide food and medication, a burden that causes great economic hardship for their relatives. Many inmates stop receiving family visits as the years pass, which leaves them at greater risk of physical and mental deterioration. Juveniles 63. Juveniles may only be convicted by a juvenile court and the Senior Correctional Facility in Accra, with a capacity of 300, is the only juvenile facility in the country. When the Special Rapporteur visited it, there were 100 boys aged between 12 and 18 at the facility. The detainees receive formal education at junior high-school level and several have been admitted to senior high school. The centre also offers vocational training in 15 different workshops, including on information and communications technology. The facility is an open camp with communal houses for sleeping. The Special Rapporteur heard no complaints regarding the food and, as described, meals seemed a notch above what is provided in adult prisons. Medical care is provided by medical aides, not professional doctors or nurses, just as in adult prisons. The authorities report that more than 50 per cent of juveniles do not receive family visits, either because the family lives too far away or the boy has been effectively abandoned by his family. 64. The Juvenile Justice Act, 2003 (Act 653), has shifted the focus from discipline to reform and reintegration. Despite that welcome change, the Special Rapporteur clinically documented traumatic physical injuries on seven juvenile inmates, resulting from a severe caning incident that had taken place within the 48 hours prior to the visit of his team. According to the boys’ testimonies, eight children had been caned by a prison official as a disciplinary measure. The Special Rapporteur asked the then Acting Director-General of the Prisons Service to conduct an urgent, independent and impartial inquiry to establish accountability for this serious act of torture. The Prisons Service publicly stated that no such treatment would be tolerated, citing article 28 (1) (d) of the Constitution, which gives special protection to children against exposure to physical and moral hazards, and said that the complaint would be investigated without undue delay. 12