Penal Reform and Gender Box 10 Women in prison in Afghanistan 67 Tordai and Shafiqa – along with another 12 female inmates and their 15 children – share a detention facility with 236 male prisoners in a mud-built compound, which was originally Mazar city’s traffic police department. The building has only two small yards and just nine cells for both male and female convicts. The lack of space means those awaiting trial languish with the convicted in the same cells. According to the prison director, Colonel Abdulrub: ‘In addition to a lack of proper medicine and health care here, the issue of very old and overcrowded rooms is another trouble for prisoners living in this compound,’ adding that up to 30 prisoners were living in a room originally built for 10 inmates. Prison authorities in Mazar also complained about a lack of foodstuffs, as well as proper medical and education facilities for children living alongside their mothers in the prison. ‘The government is only providing less than US $1 for each inmate per day, which cannot even buy their dry bread,’ a prison official said. Human rights bodies have expressed concern over poor prison conditions in the destitute central Asian state. There are 34 prisons across the country and many lack separate buildings for female prisoners, who are often kept in prison cells originally built for male inmates. ‘Some 90 children are living with their mothers, who have been charged with different crimes, without any kindergartens and other facilities for their development in all the prisons of the country,’ the same prison official claimed. ‘Prison conditions in Afghanistan remain extremely poor and prisoners generally have to rely on relatives for their food and other expenditures,’ the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said in its annual report for 2005. ‘Prisons and their staff are severely under-resourced and no training is provided to them about caring for prisoners or their duties with regards to the human rights of prisoners,’ the report read. According to the report, the rights body had helped secure the release of 1,386 illegally detained persons and removed 27 children from adult prison cells in 2005. governed by varied regimes in regards to penal reform. Countries in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus are now in the Council of Europe and are bound by the European Convention on Human Rights and the guidance instrument, the European Prison Rules. In Russia, there have been substantial reforms in the direction of a more human rights-based system since the breakup of the Soviet Union. In Central Asia, the Russian model of imprisonment has been maintained but changes have been made to bring it more into line with human rights norms and the rule of law. Challenges and opportunities for integrating gender: ■ ■ ! ■ ■ Legal provision is made for different treatment of women in prison and women with babies in prison, which could provide a platform for reform. The Council of Europe framework gives the possibility of basing reform on the non-discrimination elements of human rights requirements. Tips Women’s professional organisations, such as women lawyers’ and doctors’ groups, can be encouraged to take an interest in helping women in prison. Member countries of the Council of Europe are subject to visits by the CPT, whose findings are usually published with the government’s reply. These reports usually pay particular attention to gender matters. Civil society organisations and parliamentarians can use them as the basis for awareness-raising. 5.3 Developing countries Prison systems in many developing countries, including sub-Saharan Africa and the countries of the Englishspeaking Caribbean, are based on the legacy of the former colonial power. In former British colonies, prisons often follow a standard British design and incorporate aspects of prisons in Britain, as they were in the past. Economic pressures and failures in governance mean that prison conditions are usually bad and often lifethreatening. Prisons in Francophone Africa follow the French legal system but here too conditions are often very poor. In Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, the former colonial influence is also strong. In these countries, the idea of imprisonment was imposed by colonialism on systems that were often more attuned to restitution than retribution. The formal justice system is only one part of a much wider set of options for dealing with acts that society views with disapproval. Women and juveniles in prison in these countries suffer a range of problems. Women in some countries can be imprisoned for dowry-related offences, for adultery or being a rape victim. They are likely to be disowned by their families and may lose access to their children. In those countries, where survival depends on food and medicines being brought in by families, they are at a great disadvantage. Juveniles are often not separated from adults and are in great danger of abuse. In South East Asia, the prison system is usually highly regimented, with strict rules about how blankets should be folded and how prisoners should sit. The ideology underlying these prison systems is that prison should be a place of reform where prisoners are supposed to give up their wrong way of thinking and return to the fold. Many women are imprisoned for low-level drugs offences. 15