Togo's human rights practices under review by UN

6 October 2011

Today, the small West African state of Togo is one of the countries under the spotlight at the United Nations Human Rights Council as part of the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) - a unique mechanism designed to review the human rights practices in all countries once every four years. In the words of Ban Ki Moon, UN Secretary General: “[it] has great potential to promote and protect human rights in the darkest corners of the world.”

A member of the Lomé prison legal club delivering a speech during Week of the Detainee, co-organised by the YMCA. His T-shirt reads: ‘We are mobilising for the legal process to be respected.’

Since 2005, Togo YMCA – with support from Y Care International – has been working with a particularly marginalised group of young men and women who have come into conflict with the law through the Youth Justice and Rehabilitation Programme, which is co-financed by the European Union. The majority of young men and women who get caught up in the justice system are in situations of extreme poverty: 80 per cent had been surviving on less than $10 per month and 54 per cent had become involved in petty theft or prostitution as a survival mechanism. Once arrested, they are locked up in severely overcrowded, inhumane conditions alongside adults accused of serious crimes. Pre-trial detention should not exceed 10 days, yet 6–9 months is the average amongst young detainees, and the vast majority do not have access to a lawyer.

The Youth Justice and Rehabilitation Programme has provided legal access, rehabilitation and reintegration support to over 2,500 young people aged 15–25 and has established the first-ever in-prison legal clubs, run by inmates to provide other inmates with legal advice and support. In March 2011, Togo YMCA staff and members of the in-prison legal clubs collected data on the situation of human rights in Togo for the UPR. They highlighted the following key issues:

- Living conditions and inmate treatment: whilst cases of torture have decreased, inhumane and degrading treatment is ever-present in the prison system
- Inmates are under-nourished, receiving only one meal a day, and unhygienic conditions affect their health
- There are a large number of pre-trial detainees (in Lomé prison, for example, only 20% of the 1,968 current detainees have been sentenced)
- There is a glaring lack of training for prison guards in fundamental human rights, particularly those related to children

Harriet Knox, Y Care International’s Africa Programme Manager, says: “Whilst today will be an important opportunity for the voices and experiences of young people detained in Togo to be heard on the international stage, we are not expecting the UPR process to lead to immediate changes. In recent years, we have started to see results from the YMCA’s youth-led advocacy work but policy change is often slow and the Togolese justice sector is no exception. Our work with Togo YMCA will continue to ensure that the needs and rights of these young people are met, and to prevent more young people getting caught up in the justice sector in the first place.”

This project has been co-financed by the European Union.