UN Envoy presents report on conditions in prisons
The United Nations Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel inhuman or degrading treatment, Mr Juan E. Mendez, has observed that some prison officers torture inmates under their care.
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He said in Accra he encountered and documented a clear case of caning used as a disciplinary measure against several youth at the Senior Correctional Centre, the only facility dedicated to juveniles.
Mr Mendez, who disclose this at a press conference to brief journalists on his findings and to give some recommendations, said, “I am deeply concerned about the situation of overcrowding in prisons.”
The UN Special Rapporteur, who was in the country on the invitation of the Ghana Government, visited 10 prisons and five police stations in the Greater Accra, Ashanti, Central and Western regions to assess the country’s commitment to observe basic human rights at those facilities.
Congestion in prisons
Mr Mendez identified congestion in prisons and remands in the country as a serious human right issue that the government needed to address urgently.
“Based on simple calculations made at various prisons and additional information received by their authorities, the overcrowding rate in some places is easily between 200 and 500 per cent,” the findings made available to journalists revealed.
Death sentence
Mr Mendez observed that the prison conditions were particularly poor for inmates on remand or those on death row, adding that while there was a defacto moratorium on executions, the death row phenomenon produced severe mental trauma and physical suffering among prisoners serving death sentences.
Such prisoners, he said, also suffered anxiety created by the threat of death and hopelessness. “There is also a lack of educational and recreational activities for these inmates and their living conditions are dismal.”
He said he was happy that over the past 20 years, Ghana had not executed any prisoner on the death row but suggested that the country took steps towards the abolition of it “even though I know it is a constitutional issue and had to go through constitutional review before it could be abolished.”
Feeding and medical care
Mr Mendez recalled that he received numerous complaints on the quality and quantity of food served to prisoners. Even though he acknowledged that the government did increase the amount of money being spent on food three-fold, “the prison authorities openly acknowledged that this amount did not allow for sufficient nor balanced nutrition.”
“Inmates told me they were dependent on their families to bring them medicines but many did not receive family visits nor have money to buy their own medicines,” he told journalists.
He stressed that the government must guarantee essential medicines to be in line with minimum international obligations under the right to health and the prohibition of torture and inhuman or degrading treatment.