January 25, 2008	Friday	Muharram 15, 1429

KABUL: The United Nations said it handed to the Afghanistan government on Thursday its first women only prison, with other female detention centres in the country attached to male facilities.

The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said it had built the Kabul detention centre over the past two years with support from the Italian government.

The women only prison “will respond in a new dynamic way to the needs of women offenders sentenced to imprisonment by the courts and will provide a more individual treatment...,” UNODC coordinator Matteo Pasquali said in a statement.

The facility was built for 96 prisoners, the statement said. It is equipped with sewing machines, kitchen and catering equipment.

The conditions in which women detainees in Afghanistan are held are generally poor as is the often-corrupt judicial process they face.—AFP