Brief abstracts of conference sessions will be listed here once the final program has been confirmed.
Title: Sustainable Justice Education in the Prison Context; Perspective from Sindh Prisons in Pakistan
Lead Presenter: Zahid, Haya Emaan
Co-Presenters:
- Khoso, Altaf
Session Abstract: The session focused on explaining the evolution of legal empowerment interventions in the prisons in Pakistan from 2004 to 2019. The interventions were initiated as legal representation through a legal aid program which is run as a public-private partnership between the Committee for the Welfare of Prisoners and the Government of Sindh. A situational analysis of prisoners was shared with the audience to showcase the negligible level of legal awareness most prisoners have regarding their own cases and their incarceration. On the basis of this, legal aid was extended and expanded over the course of the 15 years. However, the gaps persisted and hence a sustainable convict led prison paralegal program was piloted in one prison in 2014. This has today grown to 4 prisons and is used at a first point of contact for new prisoners who are provided with legal information by literate and trained prisoners. The paralegals are incentivized by reductions in their sentences . The program has also achieved policy and administrative changes such as collection of data used for advocacy of the need for legal identity documents for all prisoners.
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