RIGHTS BEHIND BARS A Study of Prison Conditions In Zimbabwe 2018 custodial institution as adult offenders, the former are placed in their own section. With regards to the young offender’s right to be treated in a manner and kept in conditions that are consistent with their age, anecdotal evidence suggests that the State has failed to comply with this standard. The reports demonstrated that notwithstanding the unique nature of Whawha Young Offenders Prison, the institution operated like any other prison, with no special safeguards for the young inmates. To comply with international and national standards, the State should ensure that young offenders are not just separated from adult offenders, but are also treated in a manner that takes account of the age. 6.2. Recommendations The Forum notes that most of the recommendations are related to the need to fund the country’s prisons through Treasury in order to improve cell conditions and guarantee prisoners’ welfare. In addition to the recommendations already made in the course of this report, the Forum hereby makes the following specific recommendations for action: (a) Prison officials should be offered human rights training to ensure that they are familiar with the rights of prisoners. (b) There is need for the State to ensure that it constructs more open prisons that are modelled around the ones that exist now to ensure that conditions of detention are consistent with human dignity. In addition, the State should ensure that it revises the existing criteria for sending prisoners to open prisons to ensure that such prison are filled to capacity and to avoid underutilising prison facilities when there is congestions in other prisons. (c) It is also necessary to amend the Prisons Act and the regulations to ensure that they are compliant with the demands of both the Constitution and international law. When amending the Prisons Act, Parliament should borrow from international standards governing prisons and conditions of detention. (d) Zimbabwean prisons and the courts should ensure that detainees enjoy their right to a fair, speedy and public hearing as provided for by the Constitution. The State should release pretrial detainees from remand prison on such conditions as would ensure that they are brought to justice as soon as witnesses surface unless the accused person is a flight risk or is likely to interfere with State witnesses or to be endangered by their own release. (e) The State should commit more resources to all prisons to fully address or at least limit violations of the rights of detainees as contained in the Constitution and international law. To this end, it is necessary for the State to ensure that all prisons have the same standards of living and detainees 38 EGAP