44 Gender and Security Toolkit 4.3. Guidance for civil society* Each country is responsible for the conditions and treatment of all those deprived of their liberty by the state. Many countries outline this responsibility in a “duty of care”. This does not mean, however, that the greater community within any country cannot add important value to the smooth running of and improvements to the justice and security systems that deprive people of their liberty. In fact, NGOs play a number of vital roles, such as providing independent oversight of the treatment and conditions within places of deprivation of liberty, highlighting the needs of vulnerable groups, providing expert knowledge in particular subject areas and capacity building of institutional staff, facilitating offending-behaviour and substance-misuse rehabilitation programmes, and making policy recommendations informed by evidence-based research. Civil society can therefore aid positive reform and the introduction and evolution of gender perspectives within places of deprivation of liberty, especially where resources are limited for state institutions. Yet this should in no way reduce or negate the responsibility held solely by the state to keep all those in its care safe from harm. Independent oversight and monitoring Organizations that provide independent scrutiny of conditions within places of deprivation of liberty and the treatment of the people held therein are a vital cornerstone of any system hoping to ensure sustainable and equitable humane treatment of all such people. Recommendations from independent monitoring and oversight bodies should be fully considered and rendered part of governmental action plans, alongside recommendations from internal inspections (detailed in section 4.1). The Bangkok Rules highlight the importance of the inclusion of female members in inspection teams to “help ensure that the provision of services addressing women prisoners’ specific needs are properly inspected by a person of the same gender, as well as encouraging the receipt of complaints from women prisoners, who may feel inhibited in coming forward if all members of the monitoring body were to be male”.34 Institutional internal monitoring and auditing systems are important for regular selfevaluation, but assessment from independent sources with expert knowledge provides more objectively reliable results. The Mandela Rules provide for regular monitoring by both internal and external bodies. The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, General Recommendation No. 33 on women’s access to justice, also calls for the creation of independent organizations to provide oversight.35 There are many different methods of external oversight at the local, national and international levels, including the following. Ê National Preventive Mechanisms (NPM)s: the national component of the preventive system established by the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. NPMs are mandated to conduct regular visits to all types of places where persons are deprived of liberty. These visits should lead to recommendations to improve the protection of persons deprived of liberty. NPMs can also comment on laws and regulations, and propose reforms. Every year, NPMs publish an annual report on their activities and tortureprevention issues in their country. Ê National human rights institutions or ombuds institutions (see Box 19 for an example). Ê Inspectorates. Ê Independent NGOs. * For broader guidance on engaging civil society in governance and reform of the security sector see Tool 9, “Civil Society Oversight of the Security Sector and Gender”, in DCAF, OSCE/ODIHR, UNINSTRAW (2008) Gender and Security Sector Reform Toolkit.