Goma, North-Kivu province, 9-10 July - A reflection workshop bringing together thirty correction unit staff to reflect on the means and ways to improve security and prisons management in the North Kivu province was held on 9 - 10 July 2014.

MONUSCO correction administration support section in collaboration with the provincial Ministry for justice organized the reflection within the framework of raising public awareness of the correction administration reform in the DR Congo.

The Forum helped thirty participants, mainly representatives of political parties as well as judicial and administrative officials involved in the prisons’ management and other detention sites in the North-Kivu province to identify the needs and challenges to overcome in order to effectively manage the sites.

The following problems were identified: lack of appropriate infrastructures, prisons overpopulation, shortage of correction staff, poor working conditions for correction staff, underfed inmates.

Thereafter, participants including decision-makers formulated recommendations likely to improve prisons management and security in the North Kivu.

The recommendations included the needs for relieving prisons cells, like the Munzenze prison in Goma, which hosts more than one thousand inmates whereas its maximum accommodating capacity is 150 seats, and enforcing respect for inmates’ rights.

Participants unanimously acknowledged that the resolution of all the above-mentioned problems faced by correction sites in the North Kivu would require genuine political will.

Bernardine Diambu/Radio Okapi