37 child offenders languish in Malawi prison, from Ethiopia -Judge
A High Court judge has pressed an SOS button for urgent action over 37 Ethiopian child offenders at Kachere Reformatory Centre in Lilongwe, saying they are increasing getting malnourished due to lack of food.
Judge Fiona Mwale, who is chairperson of Child Review Board, a board mandated to look into problems of child offenders in prisons said the budget cuts faced in prisons as negatively affected the foreign child offenders who do not have relatives in Malawi.
“The situation at Kachere Reformatory Centre is very pathetic. They cook using old tyres because of lack of firewood. They have to go begging for old tyres to use as firewood. They only eat once a day because of lack of food. These Ethiopian child offenders are getting malnourished because of lack of food,” said Mwale.
She said when she went there last week, the centre was preparing food using firewood donated by another prison, Maula.
Mwale said another problem is congestion, saying the juvenile offenders hardly have space to sleep because the original intake is up by 200 per cent.
She also wondered why the government is not relocating the centre to another building, saying the building can collapse any time.
“We are sitting on a time bomb awaiting disaster. That building was condemned long ago that it is not fit for human occupation,” said Mwale.
Government officials could not make immediately comments on what Mwale said.
However every sector of government has been severely hit by financial problems with the aid freeze, among other key factors forcing public hospitals suspend food rations to patients.
Mwale said Kachere Reformatory Centre is literally relying on handouts for its sustainability, a situation she said is very worrisome.
Iwe Fiona Mwale nzeru ulibe zinatheka bwanji kuti ukhala judge, why only think of the foreighners ukuwona ngati aliyense ali kumeneko ali ndi m’bale wake pafupi nde ukuwona ngati enawo amadya chiyani? It is said when in Rome do as the Romans do,amenewo ndiwolakwa basi asiyeni kumeneko
CHILD – OFFENDERS It is sad to see these offenders be in the state they are in. On the other hand think of these children wherever they are, some of them their life completely ruined because of the acts of these child-offenders. I am not vested with the laws the judge may be using to feel for these offenders. One law i know is above all laws, and if this law was followed by all citizens of the world, including these offenders the situation in question now would not exist. This law is, LOVE. I feel with the judge, her… Read more »
Just discuss with the Ethiopian government and send them back home.
Send them back to their country so that we can be busy with our own hungry children. hese can easily be fed in their country. Is there no provision that these children in conflict with the law can be treated in their motherland?
This is because of Mr Mathanyula
who gives a fuck about hungry offenders when us honest people are hungry?
Why don’t you just deport them all? There is no issue here. Si zomangomatukwana mstsogoleri…..kusabvinidwa eti?????
All this is happening under the unwise and myopic leadership of Ibu Mutharika
So pathetic