CHAPTER 18. WORK OBJECTIVE The objective of this chapter is to underline the requirement for prisoners to be involved in a range of work activities which are useful and which will equip them with skills which they can use after their release. ESSENTIAL PRINCIPLES All sentenced prisoners who are medically fit shall be required to work. As far as possible, this work should give them skills so that they can earn an honest living after their release. National legislation regarding health and safety at work shall apply in prisons in the same way as it does in the community. Vocational training shall be provided, especially for young prisoners. Prisoners should be remunerated for the work they do. Prisoners should be allowed to spend at least part of their earnings, to send a part to their families and to save a part. BASIS IN INTERNATIONAL INSTRUMENTS The right of all people to work is enshrined in article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: 1. Everyone has the right to work … 2. Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work. 3. Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. Article 8 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides: 3. (a) No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour; (b) Paragraph 3 (a) shall not be held to preclude, in countries where imprisonment with hard labour may be imposed as a punishment for a crime, the performance of hard labour in pursuance of a sentence to such punishment by a competent court; (c) For the purpose of this paragraph the term "forced or compulsory labour" shall not include: (i) Any work or service, not referred to in subparagraph (b), normally required of a person who is under detention in consequence of a lawful order of a court, or of a person during conditional release from such detention; 99