Prison malnutrition persists
Last year, spiking malnutrition at Bvumbwe Prison left Thyolo District Hospital inundated by frail teen inmates taking milk meant for treating severe acute malnutrition in children aged below five.
Handcuffed to their sickbeds, the teenagers spoke of how their colleagues had either died or suffered opportunistic diseases as they slept on empty stomachs.
Their plight swayed health workers to implore prison authorities to stop using food as punishment.
“Children need at least three nutritious meals because they are still growing, so do patients for treatment to work,” said one of the caregivers.
The Malawi Prison Services urgently disassociated itself and sacked Bvumbwe Prison’s in-charge for not reporting the food crisis urgently.
Prisoners receive a prescribed single meal, mainly nsima with beans or peas without salt, cooking oil or other additives.
The monotonous diet was tried in 2007 when the Constitutional Court affirmed prisoners’ right to food, medical care, clothing and humane treatment in agreement with Gable Masangano’s petitions.
In 2018, seven inmates on multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (TB) treatment also moved the High Court of Malawi to reinstate the confined population’s right to humane treatment, including nutritious food.
Continued concern
Campaigners are concerned that degrading nutrition crisis in the country’s overcrowded but underfunded prisons continue a year after the Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) termed it “alarming”.
MHRC executive secretary Habiba Osman said the taxpayer-funded human rights watchdog finds it “worrisome that the right to food in prisons remains problematic not only in Thyolo, but nationwide”.
Human rights activists say the incessant food insecurity and malnutrition in prisons constitute a flagrant violation of the Constitution and human rights.
They said even though everyone has a right to adequate food for their survival and health, the prison diet remains deplorable.
Last year’s Malawi Human Rights report shows prison conditions remained life-threatening due to food shortage, overcrowding, poor sanitation and low access to potable water.
Southern Africa Litigation Centre executive director Anneke Meerkotter says the persistent food shortages require urgent intervention as it fuels malnutrition and ill health among inmates, especially TB patients.
She states: “Frequent food shortages are a serious concern which should be addressed through adequate budgeting and early identification of shortages and stock-outs,” she says.
“For prisoners who are ill, the infrequent meals affect their treatment outcomes. The prisoners noted that TB medication increases their appetite.”
Since the inmates only eat once a day—sometimes in many days—some inmates skip medication to lessen hunger and side effects.
Health workers say malnourished patients, deprived of a balanced diets, struggle to recover.
The Malawi Prison Inspectorate reports “enormous challenges” in the feeding of prisoners as all facilities visited in February 2022 expressed low access to funds in the prison’s approved budget.
Mandela Rules
Quoting South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela’s saying, the human rights defenders warn: “A nation will not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but by how it treats its lowest citizens.”
The country’s prisons fall below the United Nations Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, named after Mandela, who was jailed for 27 years.
The Nelson Mandela Rules require the State to serve every prisoner with quality and well-prepared nutritious food adequate for health and strength at the usual hours of feeding.
Systemic gaps
In the Masangano case, the court ordered prison administrations to serve prisoners two hot meals a day and diversify inmates diets within options prescribed by the Prison Act.
Human rights lawyer Chikondi Chijozi says: “The frequent shortages of food and water in prisons point to systemic challenges that must be dealt with through proper budgeting and finalisation of the long overdue Prisons Bill and revision of Prison Regulations and Standing Orders.”
The MHRC chairperson says alternative non-custodial sentences would help decongest prisons.
“Our courts are sending more people to prisons and do not consider alternative sentencing,” she says. “People are sentenced and convicted for even petty offences.”
The UN standards say every prisoner deserves a nutritional, healthy and well-prepared diet, but only a lucky few get nutritious bites when their friends visit them.
The neglected State’s obligation to feed prisoners was exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic when prisons were closed for visitors without making extra funding for food.
