In a bid to curb abuse of prisoners in Zimbabwe, prison officers throughout the country are set to get training on human rights as authorities move to ensure standards at correctional centres are in tandem with international requirements.
Zimbabwe Prison Service Deputy Commissioner Fadzai Mupure said this at a prison networking meeting organised by Miracle Missions, a non-governmental organisation, where she was responding to questions from the public.
“We are going to train our officers on human rights because prisoners are also human beings and they do not have to be ill-treated. We say no shouting at them because they have human rights also,” she said, adding that a prison officer found infringing inmates’ human rights would be charged.
Mupure said they were also making efforts to improve conditions in prisons, which reached an all-time low at the height of the country’s economic meltdown some four years ago.
“There are many projects in prison that inmates do when they are serving their time. But we also face challenges of equipment. For example, we have juveniles at Hwahwa Prison and they need to be taught on skills, but the challenge that we face is that of training material. We need books, tools for carpentry and sewing machines,” said Mupure.
The deputy commissioner said although the situation in Zimbabwean prisons had generally improved, more still needed to be done.
“We would want to improve on sanitation. We don’t have boreholes at our prisons and when council water goes we go without water, subjecting inmates to various diseases. So we need boreholes to improve the situation.”
