Fighting for human rights in silence
S. is a lawyer. She works to defend the rights of women and children, notably through her work in the Association of Women Lawyers of Burundi and the Burundian Coalition of Human Rights Defenders. She is incarcerated from February 2023 to April 2024 because of her commitment.
Prison Insider meets her during her visit to France and asks her three questions.
Prison Insider: What’s the situation in the country’s prisons regarding overcrowding?
S. Prisons are overcrowded by more than 300% . The majority of the prison population is made up of people awaiting trial, many more than those convicted. Some of them wait a year or two before appearing in court, for example, those who cannot afford to pay a lawyer to ask the court to handle their case. People are incarcerated for civil debts classified as fraud or for minor offenses, for which they should not be imprisoned.
Among the men, overcrowding is terrible. Some sleep in the prison courtyard, under the stars. When it rains, they have no roof over their heads and are exposed to the elements. In the prison where I was incarcerated, a large wall separates the women from the men. The women’s dormitories have about 15 90cm beds, each shared by two people. We slept head to toe to try to save some space. Mattresses are placed on the floor in the dormitories, sometimes up to ten of them. A dormitory can be shared by about 40 women, with limited access to showers and toilets, which are designed for 15 inmates.
Read about the full interview here.
