Items filtered by date: Thursday, 24 April 2025

By Moses Magadza in Johannesburg, South Africa

Experts this week called for better prison oversight to combat communicable diseases and protect the rights of everyone.

They also welcomed plans to develop a SADC Model Law on Prison Oversight by the SADC Parliamentary Forum with support from Sweden.

Ms Michaela Clayton, the interim Director for AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa (ARASA) expressed her organisation’s support for the envisaged model law. She noted that stark health inequalities and systemic neglect were fuelling the spread of infectious diseases such as tuberculosis (TB), HIV, hepatitis B and C in prisons.

Honourable Members, dear Colleagues and Distinguished Participants,

It is with immense pleasure that I address this august Session as a prelude to the consideration of the Prison Oversight Model Law framework.

The Joint Session of Standing Committees of the SADC-PF has always been a pivotal platform to advance critical themes in a cross-cutting manner. At the Forum, we strongly believe that Committees should not operate in silos and that ideas must be exchanged and ventilated between MPs as peers, especially on themes which concern all Committees.

OPENING REMARKS BY THE SECRETARY GENERAL ON THE OCCASION OF THE JOINT SESSION OF STANDING COMMITTEES OF THE SADC-PF ON PRISON OVERSIGHT 23RD-24TH APRIL 2025

By Moses Magadza Johannesburg, South Africa

The Chairperson of the Human and Social Development and Special Programmes Committee of the SADC Parliamentary Forum (SADC PF), Honourable Mope Khati, has urged Members of Parliament to help in transforming the region’s prison systems through the development of a progressive Model Law on Prison Oversight.

Speaking during the official opening of the Standing Committee’s statutory meeting in Johannesburg, Hon Khati paid tribute to the late Clerk of the National Assembly of Zambia, Mr Roy Ngulube.