Sierra Leone: UN starts initiative to improve monitoring of prison conditions

Human rights officers with the United Nations peace mission in Sierra Leone will tomorrow begin holding a three-day training exercise to improve the standard of monitoring of prison conditions across the West African country.

Staff with the national human rights commission, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and independent rights monitors will benefit from the training programme, the UN Integrated Office in Sierra Leone (UNIOSIL) said today in a press release issued in Freetown, the capital.

UNIOSIL stressed that the protection of prisoners’ rights is one of the essential preconditions to a durable peace in Sierra Leone, which is recovering from a brutal civil war.

Four training programmes have already been conducted for prison officers in Sierra Leone, where a countrywide assessment carried out in 2006 found there was a need for awareness-raising and training on this issue.