Prevention Of Torture : Human Rights Commission Prepares For Efficiency

The 15 members of the Cameroon Human Rights Commission, the Permanent Secretary, 21 office heads and 10 members of staff from the Commission’s branches are undergoing specific training in a workshop that started in Yaounde on May 24, 2022 on the functioning of the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture.
The Chairman of the Commission, Professor James Mouangue Kobila stated during the opening ceremony that besides the promotion and protection of human rights, its third mandate is to act as the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture and empowered to exercise the function in all detention facilities throughout the country. The workshop is intended to provide members of the Commission and staff with the necessary operational tools to familiarise themselves with the instruments and mechanisms for the prevention of torture, and good practices in fulfilling their mandate in the prevention of torture.  
Before the workshop, members and staff of the Commission had started work by visiting detention centres. The Commission’s chairperson disclosed that during the first quarter of 2022, they visited 30 places of detention in the North West, Far North, West and Adamawa Regions. This missions started last year 2021 during which they visit 28 prisons to investigate the detention conditions. The Commission, he said, is also diagnosing reports on torture in detention centres since 2016. The workshop, he specified, will enable the participants acquire new competences and perfect their approach for a better prevention of torture. At the end of the workshop, they would have to enrich the national judicial and legal framework on the prevention of torture, contribute to reform the penitentiary administration and guarantee the right to health to people in detention, as well as help in decongesting detention centres.
Cameroon Human Rights Commission will need the...