MPs debate prisoners' sex rights

Mar 19, 2015

To allow or not to allow inmates to enjoy their conjugal rights inside the grim walls of Uganda's correction facilities took center stage, as lawmakers debated and passed the 2012 report by Uganda Human Rights Commission on the state of human rights in the country.

By Moses Walubiri & Moses Mulondo

To allow or not to allow inmates to enjoy their conjugal rights inside the grim walls of Uganda's correction facilities took center stage, as lawmakers debated and passed the 2012 report by Uganda Human Rights Commission on the state of human rights in the country.

The report highlights a slew of human rights abuses - especially in Ugandan prisons - ranging from the dehumanizing "bucket system", overcrowding, to poor diet despite many penitentiaries owning farms where different crops are grown.

Although many legislators across a usually fractious political divide voiced their concerns about the plight of inmates, there was a ripple of murmurs when Kaabong woman MP, Rose Akello mooted the idea of allowing inmates to enjoy their conjugal rights.

To Akello, "having sex is a right that should not be denied to those in prison."

"Homosexuality is rife in prison because inmates are denied sex. We need to come up with a policy to allow inmates enjoy their conjugal rights," Akello said.

Although her submission clearly stirred the hornets' nest, no legislator picked up the gauntlet to challenge her submission - with murmurs growing into a chorus of disapproval, until Martin Bahinduka (Ntoroko) described Akello's submission as "stretching human rights too far."

"Conjugal right in prison is untenable. We shall be creating more problems for both prison authorities and society. Imagine inmates siring children they cannot be able to cater for. These will become a burden to society through increased criminality," Bahinduka said.

Last year, Prisons Commissioner General, Dr. Johnson Byabasaija knocked back suggestions that inmate's in Ugandan prisons should be allowed their conjugal rights saying it would stretch the prison department's meagre budget.

Spain, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, Australia (Queensland), Denmark, Canada and Germany allow conjugal visit where inmates spend several hours or days with their legal spouses during which  parties can have sex.

 The visits usually take place in designated rooms or a structure provided for that purpose, such as a trailer or a small cabin.

However, in the United States and United Kingdom, inmates have no constitutional rights to conjugal visits during custodial sentences.

The rational for conjugal visits in jurisdictions where they are permitted is to preserve family bonds and facilitate re-integration into society upon inmates completing their sentences.

According to a 2014 report by the International for Prison Studies, Uganda, with over 38,000 inmates instead of the recommended 15,000 its detention facilities can handle, is ranked ninth among the 10 countries with the most crowded prisons globally.

The list which has the Caribbean nation of Haiti - the poorest country in the Western hemisphere - on top, ranks Ugandan prisons as the most overcrowded in East Africa.

To provide facilities where inmates can enjoy their conjugal visits given the state of Ugandan prisons, Byabasaija told MPs, would be unrealistic.     

 

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