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Presentation of the Report “State of Women and Juvenile Prisoners in Georgia”

September 14, 2015
 
Nino Kimadze

Human Rights Center presented report State of Women and Juvenile Prisoners in Georgia in the conference hall of the National Library of Georgia.

The report was prepared in the framework of the project Monitoring of the State of Women and Juvenile Prisoners in Georgia, which was implemented in partnership with the Public Defender’s Office of Georgia and with financial support of the Embassy of Bulgaria in Georgia from February 15 to August 15, 2015. The purpose of the project was to study state of women and juvenile prisoners in the penitentiary etablishments. Based on the special letters of credence granted by the Public Defender of Georgia monitors of Human Rights Center, together with the representatives of the National Prevention Mechanism and the Center of Children’s Rights at the Public Defender’s Office, paid scheduled and random visits to Rustavi prison # 5 for women prisoners, to Tbilisi prison # 11 for juvenile prisoners and to the unit for juvenile convicts in Gldani prison # 8.

According to the report, during full examination, women have to go through degrading procedures in the prisons. When women are taken in or out of the facility they are ordered to take off cloth completely and have to kneel down. Another problem is insufficient hygiene items, lack of long-term conjugal visits with family members and improper medical assistance. As for juvenile facility, privileges among juvenile prisoners, cases of repeated crimes, insufficient psychologists are main problems there.

Representative of the Embassy of Bulgaria and head of the Prevention and Monitoring Department at the Public Defender’s Office attended the presentation of the Human Rights Center’s report.
Nika Kvaratskhelia from PDO office spoke about the importance of the monitoring and problems observed during the monitoring.

“During the monitoring we detected several problems. In case of women prisoners, the problem was related with their full examination procedures which can be evaluated as a routine practice in the facility that might be equal to degrading treatment. Considering this fact, it is important that the Ministry of Prison made concrete decision and to clearly state when and how a prisoner shall be examined. I think, the best solution is if this method is replaced by alternative measures like scanning for example. So called UN Bangkok Rules require the same methods. It is also important to underline referral electronic lists (queue) of women, who need referral or hospital services. It is very important that there was separate electronic list for women prisoners because their gender needs were also adequately considered, as a result they will receive adequate medical treatment timely. Besides that, they have problems with hygiene items and the Ministry must take measures to satisfy similar requirements of the prisoners. As for problems of juvenile convicts, their psycho-rehabilitation program must be enhanced because we see some achievements in this direction. It must be noted that there is some resource for proper rehabilitation. It is important to mention that sort of subculture was observed in the juvenile prison and complex measures must be taken to eradicate this problem,” Nika Kvaratskhelia, head of the Prevention and Monitoring Department at the Public Defender’s Office, said.

Issue of minorities in penitentiary establishments also concerns the society. Co-director of Human Rights Center Nino Tsagareishvili spoke about it. 
“Issue of minorities in penitentiary establishments is tabooed. It is important that this close environment opened and specialists worked on this problem,” Tsagareishvili said.
Executive director of Human Rights Center Aleko Tskitishvili believes the project was good example how civil society organizations can monitor situation in penitentiary system.

“Human Rights Center implemented this project aiming at monitoring of the penitentiary establishments in partnership with the Public Defender’s Office. Monitors of Human Rights Center observed situations in the women and juvenile custodies and with this report we presented results of this monitoring. It is noteworthy that in the frame of the project we informed society about observed problems through journalistic publications, press-conferences and other advocacy campaigns,” Aleko Tskitishvili said.

The report State of Women and Juvenile Prisoners in Georgia presented recommendations: to eradicate the established practice of full examination procedure in the correctional facility: to accelerate necessary measures to provide right of conjugal visits for women prisoners and create relevant infrastructure in penitentiary facilities; to place telephone booth inside the facility # 5; to renovate the facilities; To provide reasonable amount of hygienic products to women prisoners; to revoke the payment for long visits and video dates of juvenile prisoners, to eliminate authoritative attitudes and privileges among juvenile prisoners;; to create re-socialization programs; to allocate more psychologists and social workers in the juvenile facility. Recommendations on the improvement of general conditions of women and juvenile prisoners were also elaborated. 

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