Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News – 16-11-2017
A study by academics from the Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources in Malawi has found that on average 12,000 prisoners in that country prisons receive just 17% of the recommended daily food provision and that 89% of them are severely food insecure.
amaBhugane reports that the food shortage was assessed in interviews with prisoners using 11 different tests, including whether they ate unwanted food, went to sleep hungry, had gone a day and night without eating and used shameful methods to obtain food amongst others.
A total 1,000 of the 12,598 inmates in Malawi’s 30 jails in 2015, as well as 30 officers in charge of the institutions, were interviewed.
Inmates told Centre for Investigative Journalism Malawi (CIJM) that the cooks, who are recruited from among the prisoners, demand monetary or other bribes to provide larger portions, and that those that lack the means to pay suffer the worst pangs of hunger.
Victor Mhango, of the Centre for Human Rights Education Advice and Assistance has blamed erratic government funding for the scandal, saying that it has made approved foodstuff suppliers reluctant to enter supply contracts with the prisons.
“We need to change government’s mindset. They think prisoners are not entitled to human rights because they committed offences, forgetting that we are all potential candidates.”
One of the prisoners interviewed by CIJM says the government takes the hunger situation as a norm.
“I don’t see anything changing.”
Mhango says the report was a true reflection of the food crisis in Malawi’s prisons and that the Malawi Prison Inspectorate had made similar findings.
Malawi Prison Services spokesperson Smart Maliro failed to answer questions about the food crisis over a period of three weeks.
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