RIGHTS BEHIND BARS A Study of Prison Conditions In Zimbabwe 2018 6. SPECIFIC FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS This section summarises the main research findings outlined in the report and provides recommendations for reform in selected priority areas of the rights of detainees. 6.1. Specific Findings The discussion in this report was largely thematic and the specific themes/rights discussed related to pre-trial detention; prisoners’ dignity, cell conditions and sanitation; bedding; adequate clothing; access to sufficient food and clean water; access to health care services; issues pertaining to education, vocational training and work; and the rights of juveniles deprived of their liberty. With regards to pre-trial detention, there are adequate domestic and international safeguards with regards to being tried within a reasonable period of time. Despite the fact that there are local cases that have stipulated that detention without trial for a period of five years is unreasonable and violates the rights of persons deprived of their liberty, some prisoners have been detained without trial for more than 10 years. To make matters worse, the reasons for not being tried constituted administrative challenges for which the prisoner or detainee could not be faulted. Persons deprived of their liberty are entitled to the right to dignity and cell conditions and sanitation must be consistent with this right. There was overcrowding in some prisons and the risks of disease outbreak and spread were very high. There were shortages of detergents, soap, body lotion, and other washing aides were rarely adequately supplied and inmates relied on what they received from relatives and well wishers. At many prisons, the inmates used buckets to flush human waste either because of water shortages or because the flushing system for the toilets had not been repaired. At Mutare Farm Prison, lice were reported to have become a serious problem and there was need for fumigation to fix the situation. There was no toilet in cells at Tabudirira Satellite Prison in Mutoko. There was one bucket that was put in the cell which inmates used to relieve themselves and the bucket was now in a dilapidated State. These conditions violate the prisoner’s right to be placed in conditions of detention that are consistent with human dignity as provided for in international instruments and section 50(5)(d) of the Constitution. While none of the international human rights instruments explicitly provides for prisoners’ rights to bedding, this right is implied in the right to an adequate standard of living. At the domestic level, the Prisons Act explicitly refers to every prisoner’s entitlement to adequate bedding. Many prisons provide blankets that are arguably sufficient enough to keep each detainee or prisoner, with or without a bed, sufficiently warm even during the winter season. As far as clothing is concerned, the same provisions that ground the right to bedding also ground the right to adequate clothing. In as far as practice is concerned, it is worth noting that unconvicted prisoners were allowed to wear their own clothes as required by international and national law. Nonetheless, there were shortages of clothing at many 36 EGAP