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Pakistan: HRW report overcrowded prisons highlights abuses
Some jail cells, the report says, are holding as many as 15 prisoners when they were designed for just three people.
A prominent rights group has raised alarm over Pakistan’s overcrowded prisons and called for reforms to the country’s criminal justice system. In a report released on Wednesday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said Pakistan’s more than 100 jails had at least 88,000 inmates, against the officially approved capacity of 65,168.
The overcrowding has “compounded existing health deficiencies” and left the prisoners “vulnerable to communicable diseases,” the HRW said in its 55-page report, titled A Nightmare for Everyone: The Health Crisis in Pakistan’s Prisons.
Some jail cells, the report said, were holding as many as 15 prisoners when they were designed for just three people.“Pakistan has one of the world’s most overcrowded prison systems,” it said, adding that many prisoners were unable to access medicine and treatment for even basic health needs. Prisoners are forced to live under unsanitary conditions and “lice, fleas, scabies and skin diseases are common in prison,” it said.