PRI participate in Council of Europe Seminar in Ukraine on the prevention of ill treatment in places of detention.
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PRI’s programme development director, Nikhil Roy was invited by the Council of Europe as an expert speaker to two seminars titled “European standards and safeguards for protection of prisoners' rights and obligations of prison staff, including the prevention of ill-treatment in the places of deprivation of liberties”, held in Kyiv on the 17/18th November and 1/2nd December 2011 as part of the Joint Programme of the Council of Europe and European Union “Reinforcing the fight against ill-treatment and impunity”. The two seminars involved 90 participants including senior personnel from the prison service and monitoring committees in Ukraine. A Presentation was delivered on “International standards for preventing and combating ill-treatment of prisoners.” The aim was to provide the information in the form of a checklist, asking delegates to think about whether or not Ukraine is fulfilling relevant international standards. PRI recently implemented an SDC funded project “Support to Penitentiary Reform in Ukraine”. The project provided psychological support to juveniles has had good results; and improved conditions for women with babies in Chernigiv colony.
A second presentation was delivered on the role of independent monitoring of human rights in places of imprisonment. The UN Subcommittee for the Prevention of Torture and ill treatment visited Ukraine in May. If the report is published it will provide an assessment of how well the country is doing in regard to torture prevention and further areas for improvement.