PRI brings together prison directors from six Arab countries
Directors and representatives of prisons and NGOs from six Arab countries meet in Amman, and conduct field visits to men's and women's prisons. On 7 and 8 May PRI's MENA Office, in collaboration with the Jordanian Rehabilitation and Correction Centers, organised a regional consultative meeting on the topic “Towards a new human rights-based approach in managing prisons: the protection of vulnerable groups”.
The programme, implemented in Jordan, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Egypt and Yemen and funded by the Swedish Agency for International Development, promotes humane treatment of and the need for special care and attention to vulnerable and marginalised groups within the penal system. These include women, pregnant women, children in conflict with the law or accompanying their mothers in prisons, imprisoned domestic workers, and other categories of prisoner according to countries’ classifications.
The opening ceremony of the meeting was attended by the Swedish ambassador to Jordan Charlotta Sparre, and the Commissioner-General of the Jordanian National Center for Human Rights, and received wide media attention and coverage (TV, radio, print and electronic news sites...)
The first day included an introduction to the project from PRI's Regional Director, followed by roundtable sessions and presentations by representatives of the six countries. Certain specialised experiences in the field of education, rehabilitation and aftercare attracted attention and detailed discussions. New fields of cooperation were emphasised for the near future, which will be included in the coming training programme as part of the project.
The second day of the meeting included full-day visits by all participants to the Jordanian training centres for staff, the women's rehabilitation and correction centres in Amman and the men's rehabilitation and correction center in the region of Mouaqar, in the desert 60 km from Amman.
