OF the many aspects of Pakistan’s justice system that are deeply flawed, one of the most inhumane is the wretched state of the prisons. Many of those incarcerated can expect their existence to quietly be erased from the public memory. It is not often when this subject is debated. But on Thursday, the issue of jails came up when, during question hour, the Sindh Assembly heard that over the past three years, 104 prisoners had died in the prisons of the province. MQM legislator Sumeta Syed had asked why of these fatalities 76pc, or 80 persons, had died in the prisons of just two cities, Karachi and Hyderabad. While no direct explanation to this point was provided, the provincial minister for parliamentary affairs, Nisar Ahmed Khuhro, did inform the house that the death of 90 prisoners was due to ‘natural’ causes, while the rest had died because of other reasons, such as suicide and jail riots. Further discussion brought to light other information — for instance, 19 women were incarcerated in the province’s four women’s prisons, but the number of children living with them was not known.

To quote natural causes is all very well, but it must be highlighted that the conditions that prevail in prisons across the country, not just in Sindh, are very far from a standard that allows good health. The most endemic problem is overcrowding: prisoners are forced to live in cramped and uncomfortable quarters, with juvenile detainees or those convicted of ‘soft’ crimes often housed with hardened criminals — because of which they too can be thrust further into a life of crime. The buildings that are being used as prisons tend to be old, colonial-era relics where hygiene and sanitation present major challenges. And while the budgets for prisoners’ diet may have increased over the decades, more can be done on this front. Such deficiencies need to be addressed urgently. Jailing people should not mean stripping them of their basic right to dignity.

Published in Dawn, January 21st, 2017