The Nairobi Declaration for Detainee Telecommunications Rights
Pan Africa CURE Conference
Pan Africa Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Errants (CURE) hosted the 9th International CURE conference in Nairobi, Kenya with 95 participants who represented 28 countries. Committed to criminal justice and prison reform based on prisoner and human rights, many were from Africa, and participants included prior detainees from 3 continents. Pan Africa CURE is committed to supporting prisoners, preparing and accepting them as returning citizens, as reflected in its slogan:
“We support rehabilitation of Prisoners and Advocate for Reforms in the Criminal Justice System because today’s prisoners are tomorrow’s neighbours.”
The conference explored how the criminal justice system reform can align with the 17 United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, a key feature of the UN’s 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. The main purpose of the conference was to learn, share and support grassroots efforts of other countries, with a panel discussion focused on “rehabilitation through communications, arts and sports”.
A key issue at the conference was the issue of telecommunication and technology access for detainees around the globe. Fruitful discussion at the conference resulted in the production of the Nairobi Declaration for Detainee Telecommunications Rights.
LEADING FIGURES
Peter Onyango Olwal – Coordinator of Pan Africa CURE
Charlie Sullivan – Founder of International CURE
The Nairobi Declaration
The Nairobi Declaration is the first-of-its-kind international declaration to enshrine the rights of detainee’s access to telecommunications. The declaration builds on decades of work by organisations like CURE in bettering the life of detainees around the globe while they are incarcerated, making their life easier, allowing them to communicate with friends, loved ones, legal counsel, healthcare professionals, and education online. Around the globe millions of prisoners are deprived of the right to access telecommunications and communicate with the outside world while they serve their sentence, and this declaration aims to connect them to the outside world to allow them to better themselves. Detainees are human, regardless of the crime they have committed, and ought to be treated as such and offered certain opportunities available to the general population