A friend of mine recently experienced a night in remand prison in Mutare. In the same cell as her was a woman who had been on remand for 4 months. She could not raise bail of $20. My friend paid the $20 bail.

Here’s some information from the Southern African Parliamentary Support Trust:

Thematic Committee on Human Rights

The Thematic Committee embarked on fact-finding visits to Mutare Central Prison, Mutimurefu Prison (Masvingo) and Whawha Prison to assess the conditions under which the prisoners were kept. The fact-finding visit was an eye-opener to Senators as they witnessed for themselves the deplorable and inhumane prison conditions. Below are some of the common highlights of the Committee’s findings;

• Uninhabitable conditions characterized by overcrowding and dilapidated infrastructure

• Plight of inmates with HIV and AIDS

• Erratic water supply

• Inadequate food provisions and poor diet

• Plight of Children of inmates

• Tattered uniforms and bed linen

• Shortage of learning materials (e.g. textbooks etc)

The Mutare Central Prison also houses refugees from five different countries including the DRC, Ivory Coast and Congo. These refugees asked Committee Members to talk to their embassies so that they could be returned to their home countries. The Committee also heard that a number of people have been on remand for a long time. The prison officials cited fuel and transport constraints as some of the reasons for the delay in getting the prisoners to court. In addition, the Committee heard that the prison also houses some mentally ill inmates.

This entry was posted on April 15th, 2011 at 4:12 pm by Bev Clark and is filed under Governance, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.