NHRC, UNGRC organise workshop for security operatives

The National Human Rights Commission has collaborated with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees to organise a sensitization workshop for security operatives and legislators in Maiduguri, aimed at facilitating the decriminalization of petty offences in the state.

The training also served as a strategy to reach an agreement with the authorities on appropriate methods in decongesting detention facilities in the state.

The National Human Rights Commission has continued to conduct regular visits to correctional facilities, police and military detention centres to critically assess detention conditions with a view to identifying challenges faced by Persons of concern.

Their visit was to ensure that the Persons of Concern who are in detention are kept in line with international acceptable minimum standards.

Findings, from the visit show that some of the inmates find themselves in detention facilities over such petty offences as hawking, loitering, failure to pay debt, disobedient to parents as well as absence of documentation.

It has prompted the commission to organise a sensitization workshop for security operatives on the need to decongest their detaintion facilities.

At the sensitization workshop, the Commission observed that many of the Displaced Population No longer possess legal documentation, which makes them subject to harassment, arrests and even exploitation and infringement of their fundamental rights.

Participants described the workshop as an eye opener for many of them.

The Commission pledges to continue with its mandate to promote, protect and enforce human rights and humanitarian assistance in the country.

The aim of the program is to create a platform where by correctional facilities and other detention centres are rid of vulnerable people who committed petty crimes.