WHOSE HUMAN RIGHTS ANYWAY? By SAMUEL KASANKHA
A COLLEAGUE and fellow human rights activist, Geoffrey Mayamba, who runs a prisons- based non-governmental organisation (NGO) known as Prisoners Future Foundation (PFF) disclosed to me last week that the extent of the problems surrounding ex-prisoners integration into society after their release from jail is very bad.
Mayamba, who served a jail term and now works hard through his NGO to help alleviate the suffering of convicts while they serve their terms, as well as in their post-jail lives, is worried that the good work done by the Prisons Service to rehabilitate inmates and give them education as well as life-saving skills, is not being adequately reciprocated by the rest of society.
Like many others, Mayamba observes that society is generally negative towards people coming out of jail, tending to consider them criminals and unwanted even when they are reformed and willing to start life afresh and/or contribute to the development of the country through participation in positive developmental programmes.
Mayamba, who spoke against the background of having just conceded failure to assist one of the over 600 recently paroled inmates to get a job placement (the former prisoner got qualified in auto mechanics while in jail) ,said the effect of the failure to reintegrate led many into psychological breakdowns that totally shattered their lives.
People just fail to cope with the realisation that they got an education, they got skills but when they get out of jail, these count for nothing. They get no help, he lamented.
The general, though unresearched, perception about ex-prisoners, especially those released en masse through presidential clemency is that they quickly revert to their bad ways and terrorise society.
Not so, says Percy Chato, Commissioner of Prisons. He stated recently in an interview on Kabwes Radio Maranatha that the greater majority of released prisoners, including those that have served their terms, do not get back to crime. Only a handful do.
This is why there is need for a study to determine how many ex-prisoners revert to crime, how many get job placements and/or succeed in engaging in other gainful self-employment or similar activities.
Our society must scientifically determine the exact situation regarding these relatives and/or friends that may have gotten into trouble with the law, have since reformed, but are getting little or no assistance to settle back in society.
The findings of such a study, if/when undertaken, should form the bedrock for policy decisions/interventions into the welfare of ex prisoners.
There might be need for Government to formulate deliberate plans to absorb the qualified cadre of workers graduating with skills from our prisons. Otherwise, the whole purpose and effort of transferring these skills in prisons becomes a futile exercise.
Some may be fully prepared for self-employment such that what they need is financing for their preferred projects.
The full range of possibilities with respect to how, as a nation, we can reintegrate and help ex- prisoners to cope with life must be explored at government level and, with the kind of goodwill we have seen from President Michael Sata towards prisons and prisoners welfare, the sooner the better so that these well-intended actions of releasing prisoners yield the desired results.
The Ministry of Labour, trade unions and other concerned bodies,must quickly adopt ways of attending to the work rights of teachers and other staff in private schools.
Most such staff do not belong to the many teacher unions existing in the country and are as such subjected to blatant violation of their rights.
This is particularly so because the many teacher training institutions at various levels continue to spew out thousands of graduates and the industry is virtually flooded.
As such, some schools are teaming with tin-pot dictators that hire and fire teachers at will, without due regard to labour laws, both international and domestic.
In the near future, I intend, with permission, to reproduce one teachers resignation letter from a Chilenje private school, which is pregnant with evidence of serious labour rights violations, and which these institutions get away with because there appears to be nobody taking interest in the welfare of these teachers in private schools.
The armed robbery which is reported to have occurred in broad daylight at Lusakas Manda Hill Police Post last week is a vote of no confidence in the capacity of our police service to safeguard the right to security of the person and property.
It speaks volumes about the levels of unpreparedness of the unit we established to secure our lives and property.
Aside to being regularly accused of corruption, unprofessional conduct with respect to their application of certain laws, especially as they appertain to our enjoyment of certain civil and political rights, uncouth methods of extracting evidence from suspects, including torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment, the general credibility rating of our police service, at the moment, is undoubtedly ZERO!
270 total views, 184 views today