prison inmates are an important vulnerable group for risk behaviours including drug abuse and HIV/AIDS. Although no reliable estimates are available for the South Asia region, in most countries drug use is also a well-recognised problem in the prisons.
Currently there is growing awareness and widespread concern about drugs and HIV/AIDS in prisons. The impact of any HIV/AIDS prevention and care programme in prisons depends on cooperation of all stakeholders in prison settings (prison staff, civil society and inmates). A crucial breakthrough has been made in this regard through pilot interventions being undertaken by UNODC ROSA (through project
RAS/H71) in collaboration with Governments and NGOs in South Asia. |
Issues at a glance
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This project is supporting
26 prison intervention sites in South Asia (Bangladesh-2, India-4, Maldives-1, Nepal-5 and Sri Lanka-14). It has successfully conducted
13 capacity building programmes i.e. 1 Regional training and 12 National Trainings (Bangladesh-2, India-2, Maldives-1, Nepal-2 and Sri Lanka-5) accross the region. |
| The strategy adopted by the project is to build capacity of the stakeholders in rolling out the interventions efficiently. So far, the project has conducted one Regional Training of Trainers, 5 National Training programmes and 8 Site-specific trainings for prison officials, welfare officers, medical officials and NGOs working in prison settings of South Asia. |
Site specific training at Kandy, Sri Lanka
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The prison interventions seek to provide requisite knowledge and skills on prevention of drug abuse and HIV/AIDS with the aim of initiating behaviour change among the prison community. |
Role-play by inmates at Amritsar central Prison, India
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This project conducted a rapid needs assessment in select prison sites in South Asia to arrive at the following ground realities: overcrowding, constraint of resources, convicted prisoners are a minority population, low awareness about HIV and drug related issues, non existent community participation (including NGOs) and involvement; urgent need for greater coordination between and training of custodial and rehabilitation agencies.
UNODC, through Government and NGO partners is advocating a peer based participatory approach, that aims at increasing awareness and preventing risk behaviours among inmates. This is implemented to ensure that the ultimate ownership and capacity building rests with prison inmates.
A draft South Asia protocol for prison interventions is being developed through a participatory process with inputs from prison officials, rehabilitation professionals, NGOs and prisoners. The draft protocol takes into account the locale specific culture, lifestyles, and laws prevalent across the region. Through different intervention strategies, it addresses issues relating to drugs and HIV awareness and prevention, peer outreach, empowerment through life skills, livelihood skills, access to services and post release re-integration into society. |
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Participants at a National Training, Kathmandu, Nepal |
The legal and institutional framework for working with incarcerated prisoners in these countries may take a while to change. The project is trying to advocate the use of existing provisions within the laws and regulations to make a better health impact and smoother implementation of prevention initiatives across the South Asia region.
ROSA believes that any intervention in a closed institution like prisons needs to be country/locale specific and should be contrived, authored and owned by the prison community in close association with decision makers and civil society.
Mr. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of UNODC, sitting with inmates at Tihar Jail, India
Some key factors for success:
- Obtaining secure buy-in from the authorities
- Involving the community and prisoners to make it cost effective and sustainable
- Ensure the interventions are authored, contrived and owned by stakeholders
- Integration of the programme within the broader prison reform context
- Ensuring that intervention designs are locale- and country-specific
- Capacity building and ownership to rest with inmates
ROSA's prison initiative adopts an incremental approach towards adoption of a comprehensive package to address HIV prevention in prison settings of South Asia.
Next phase : The project, while continuing its training and capacity building programmes in the region is set to start the phase II of the project which will focus on oral substitution treatment (OST) in prisons. This includes needs assessment, advocacy programmes, training and capacity building, initiating select pilots on OST and study tours for stakeholders in the region.
Based on the needs expressed by Governments of the region, a prison reform project is being developed. This project aims at building capacities of member states:
- To apply Standard Minimum Rules for Treatment of Prisoners
- To apply international standards on the professional management/operation of prisons and other closed settings
- To strengthen laws and policies in line with international standards and norms on diversions, restorative justice and non-custodial sanctions
- To address the issues of overcrowding, expeditious trial and better health and hygiene in prison settings
- To ensure increased application of strategies to reduce the spread of drugs/HIV by Member States in prisons of South Asia
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