Daily Times

KARACHI:The Sindh branch of the Pakistan Red Crescent (PRC) in collaboration with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) organized a round table meeting with prison authorities from across Sindh province on Friday here at a local hotel. The meeting was attended by IG Prisons & Correctional Facilities Sindh, AIG Prisons Sindh, DIG Prisons Karachi Region, DIG Women, SSP CP Karachi, SSP DP Malir, DIG Hyderabad, SP CP Hyderabad, SP CP Mirpurkhas, SP CP Jacobabad, SP DP Women and Juvenile Correction Facility Sukkur, SP Khairpur and SSP Larkana.

IG Sindh Kazi Nazeer Ahmed appreciated the Restoring Family Links (RFL) program for the welfare of foreign detainees. He assured his full support and cooperation to the Pakistan Red Crescent’s humanitarian work in all detention centres in Sindh province.

IG Sindh and management of Pakistan Red Crescent agreed to provide free phone calls and video calls facility to inmates, for which a detailed protocol and mechanism would be established following consultation. Pakistan Red Crescent also decided to provide various trainings to jail authorities, staff, and inmates across Sindh, including psychological and emergency first aid, health and hygiene, heatwave prevention, and ways to keep the environment clean, at the request of the IG Sindh. Moreover, PRC-Sindh will conduct technical training sessions for prison medical staff in collaboration with ICRC to understand and deal with the psychological problems of prisoners.

At the request of the majority of participants, PRC-Sindh Provincial Secretary Kanwar Waseem stated that they will sign a memorandum of understanding with jail authorities in the future to provide medical services to prison staff at Pakistan Red Crescent Hospitals throughout Sindh at a very low cost.

Furthermore, Kanwar Waseem proposes that, in order to better understand the needs of jails, Pakistan Red Crescent will form a health committee that will visit each jail in Sindh and submit an assessment report; additional assistance would be provided depending on the report.

Earlier, PRC-Sindh Senior Vice chairman Raffique Ahmed Jafferi welcomed all the distinguished guests and thanked them for attending the meeting for a noble cause. Jafferi also expressed gratitude to the prison authorities for facilitating the Pakistan Red Crescent’s officers to conduct humanitarian work for prisoners.

PRC-Sindh Honorary Treasurer Dr. Majid Alvi, PRC-Sindh Managing Committee member Dr. Ali Warsi, PRC-NHQ RFL Program Manager Syed Muneeb Ilyas, RFL Program Officer Sana Anwer, ICRC RFL Coordinator Mehwish Khan, ICRC Legal Advisor Murtaza Ayaz, ICRC RFL Program Manager Muhammad Hazrat, PRC-Sindh RFL Manager Fawwad Khan Sherwani and others also attended the meeting.