Inter­na­tional Com­mit­tee of the Red Cross

Five months after the earth­quake struck, hun­dreds of thou­sands of Haitians are still suf­fer­ing hard­ship. Those deprived of their free­dom are among the most vul­ner­a­ble, hid­den away from the eyes of the world. San­dra Dessi­moz, deputy head of del­e­ga­tion in Port-au-Prince, explains the dif­fi­cul­ties detainees have to con­tend with on a daily basis, and what the ICRC is doing to help.

How have detainees in Haiti been affected by the earthquake?

The human­i­tar­ian sit­u­a­tion in Hait­ian deten­tion cen­tres was already extremely wor­ry­ing prior to the quake, because of severe over­crowd­ing. In some facil­i­ties, the num­ber of detainees exceeded six times the offi­cial capac­ity. In addi­tion, detainees had only spo­radic con­tact with their fam­i­lies. As in other sim­i­lar con­texts, the role of the fam­ily in Haiti is cru­cial. Rel­a­tives often bring in mate­r­ial items, such as food and hygiene arti­cles, and they also offer con­sid­er­able moral sup­port. Access to health care was lim­ited and many detainees were on long-term remand, mak­ing the sit­u­a­tion much worse.

In the chaos that fol­lowed the earth­quake, over half of detainees escaped from pris­ons around the coun­try. Many facil­i­ties suf­fered dam­age, or were van­dal­ized or set on fire, ren­der­ing them unus­able. Sev­eral legal case files were lost in the rub­ble, fur­ther com­pli­cat­ing the prob­lems of long-term remand and over­crowd­ing. Nor should we for­get that the prison and judi­cial author­i­ties have been just as affected as the rest of the pop­u­la­tion. Their employ­ees also lost loved ones or saw them injured in the disaster.

What is the cur­rent sit­u­a­tion at the civil­ian prison in Port-au-Prince?

The civil­ian prison in Port-au-Prince is the largest prison in Haiti. The day before the earth­quake, it housed almost half the country’s prison pop­u­la­tion, that is, over 4,000 detainees. All escaped dur­ing the dis­as­ter and the build­ing suf­fered seri­ous mate­r­ial dam­age. By Feb­ru­ary, just one sec­tion of the prison had been rebuilt and was avail­able to take in detainees from the met­ro­pol­i­tan area of Port-au-Prince. By May, the pop­u­la­tion at this facil­ity had already reached 1,000.

The author­i­ties must urgently fin­ish rebuild­ing other areas so that detainees can go out into the open air, which will help reduce the ten­sion between them. At the moment, detainees are liv­ing in shock­ing con­di­tions; space is so lim­ited that most have to sleep sit­ting up and some even have to stand. In the long term, this will have seri­ous impli­ca­tions for their health. Over­crowd­ing and secu­rity con­cerns mean that detainees have very lit­tle oppor­tu­nity to go out into the open air, which would go some way towards com­pen­sat­ing for the dif­fi­cult con­di­tions in the cells.

What are the prison author­i­ties doing to tackle these problems?

In a coun­try which has suf­fered suc­ces­sive crises and dis­as­ters, the author­i­ties face almost per­ma­nent chal­lenges. They are aware of the dif­fi­cul­ties and of the inad­e­quacy of the infra­struc­ture and the basic ser­vices. With inter­na­tional sup­port, they are endeav­our­ing to find real solu­tions and are work­ing to develop the skills of the prison staff.

Since 1994, the ICRC has been pro­vid­ing the author­i­ties with reg­u­lar sup­port so they can take action to improve deten­tion con­di­tions. More­over, ICRC del­e­gates are guar­an­teed direct access at all times to any­one deprived of their lib­erty, in their cell. ICRC assis­tance takes dif­fer­ent forms, depend­ing on the needs. For exam­ple, fol­low­ing the quake, we sup­plied detainees with emer­gency aid in the form of 40 tonnes of food, drugs and hygiene prod­ucts. We also repaired the only usable deten­tion quar­ters at the civil­ian prison in Port-au-Prince, to ensure detainees had access to water and could main­tain min­i­mum lev­els of hygiene. We also sup­port admin­is­tra­tion of the health ser­vices. Through these mea­sures, the ICRC hopes to help pro­vide those held in Hait­ian pris­ons with accept­able liv­ing conditions.

Other Hait­ian and inter­na­tional orga­ni­za­tions work in pris­ons. What makes the ICRC unique?

Many other agen­cies are work­ing in pris­ons or with the jus­tice sys­tem. Given the exist­ing human­i­tar­ian needs, all these efforts need to be coor­di­nated if we are to gen­uinely improve the sit­u­a­tion. Thanks to its exper­tise and its prox­im­ity to the prison pop­u­la­tion, the ICRC clearly makes a sig­nif­i­cant con­tri­bu­tion and plays an impor­tant role. ICRC del­e­gates are able to talk to detainees face to face and in con­fi­dence dur­ing their reg­u­lar vis­its to the main places of deten­tion. This gives them in-depth knowl­edge of the prob­lems, and greater cred­i­bil­ity with both the author­i­ties and the detainees.

The prob­lems in pris­ons are inter-dependent. For exam­ple, hygiene and access to the open air are directly linked to health. In order to bet­ter assess and meet the needs, ICRC del­e­gates work with col­leagues who have exper­tise in health, water and san­i­ta­tion. This mul­ti­dis­ci­pli­nary approach enables us to iden­tify the prob­lems, to advise the author­i­ties and to run var­i­ous projects, all with the same objec­tive — to improve detainees’ liv­ing conditions.

What are the ICRC’s cur­rent pri­or­i­ties con­cern­ing deten­tion in Haiti?

We have resumed the projects already under­way before the earth­quake. In par­tic­u­lar, we are work­ing with the civil­ian prison in Port-au-Prince to improve the social, legal and med­ical ser­vices avail­able to detainees, all the while work­ing on water, san­i­ta­tion and infra­struc­ture. Dif­fer­ent projects are cur­rently being planned for other pris­ons in the coun­try. We are con­tin­u­ing to sup­port med­ical ser­vices in order to con­tinue improv­ing access to health care for detainees out­side Port-au-Prince. Our staff are also ready to respond to any new emer­gen­cies that detainees and the prison ser­vice may be faced with.

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/haiti-interview-250610