PESHAWAR, May 24: NWFP’s inspector general of prisons said on Tuesday that the provincial government had mobilized its resources in order to provide market-oriented vocational training to prisoners, specifically to juveniles and women. Mr Azam Khan said a list of vocational skills had already been prepared and a summary had been sent to the chief secretary for approval. But Mr Khan conceded that the department lacked funds to recruit vocational teachers.

A two-member team of the Society for the Protection of Rights of the Child (Sparc) comprising Jahanzeb Khan and Jawad Ullah met Mr Khan and offered cooperation in executing the projects. The team offered to provide vocational teachers for juveniles in six jails where Sparc was running its projects under its education programme within the province’s prisons.

Sparc team members also proposed to the IG that medical camps be set up for juveniles at Swat, Swabi, Dera Ismail Khan and Peshawar Jails so that health facilities could be provided to prisoners.

In a press release issued here on Tuesday, Sparc claimed that the organisation had convinced the IG to upgrade the monthly population statement of prisoners crime-wise and age-wise. The prison authorities should also include a column for female juvenile prisoners and children accompanying their mothers, the Sparc press release said. Mr Khan told the team that the suggestion was well taken and soon a circular would be issued to all jails to adopt the patron.

Sparc has also called for accelerating the pace of the Bannu Borstal Institute’s construction and administering the borstal institution according to the Borstal Manual. Sparc has taken the responsibility of drafting a Borstal Law for the NWFP.

In response to a question about the imprisonment of women and children under FCR, Mr Khan said that he had already written to the Fata Secretariat to direct political administrators not to imprison women and children under a collective responsibility clause.