Support Imprisoned Children & Women in Afghanistan

Dear Supporter,

We are pleased to share an update on our programme supporting children and women in conflict with the law in Balkh and Kabul Provinces of Afghanistan.

The COVID-19 pandemic has created significant challenges with increased restrictions upon access to detention facilities. Despite these challenges in delivery, our team have been able to maintain support for vulnerable children and women in in a number of key areas – diversion of cases to avoid unnecessary detention of children and women; rehabilitation to support the education and wellbeing of incarcerated children and women, and reintegration support for children and women into their families, schools and communities.

We have progressed in promoting diversion of cases - promoting more proportionate sentencing and avoiding the involvement of children and women in the punitive justice system altogether. Our interventions been directly effective towards increased diversion of cases, but also our capacity strengthening measures have built the ability of justice sector actors to promote diversion of cases in the long-term. Specifically, our team has achieved the following:

• Facilitated the diversion of children in conflict with the law from incarceration through promotion of alternatives to detention – a total of 63 cases in the past year

• Provided legal advice sessions to women and girls in female detention facilities – 232 women and girls in past year

• Delivered advocacy and training for community members, correctional facility and police station staff, government and other key stakeholders to change attitudes, policies and procedures to better protect the rights of vulnerable children and women – 42 police officers, 24 social workers and 21 prison staff were trained in the past year

• Carried out a research study evaluating alternative to detention methods. The report will be made available to justice sector stakeholders and the wider community to advocate for community service sentencing as a viable and much-needed alternative to detention

We have also progressed in offering rehabilitation support to incarcerated women and children. Our interventions have improved education and employability skills, the health and emotional well-being of incarcerated children and women; the long-term effects of can reduce rates of recidivism (reoffending). In particular, we have:

• Delivered education and vocational training programmes to children and women including basic literacy and numeracy classes, as well as specific classes in computing, English and arts. 192 children and 89 women participated in education and vocational programmes in the past year

• Provided psychosocial counselling support and support group sessions to address stress and mental traumas faced by incarcerated children and women. 47 children and 506 women received psychosocial support through individual and group sessions in the past year

• Offered gender-responsive rights awareness courses to incarcerated women and girls. 93 women and girls in female detention facilities participated in the course in the past year

Finally, we have supported the reintegration of children and women upon release. Our reintegration support tackles a strong negative bias towards children and women offenders that prevents acceptance by families and communities, therefore reducing the likelihood of recidivism upon release. In particular, we have:

• Supported incarcerated children with reintegration prior to release by facilitating family visits, and post-release through monitoring visits by programme social workers – 340 children received reintegration support in the past year

• Provided reintegration support for former detainees women’s detention facilities post-release through social work support via telephone – 70 women received post-release social work support in the past year

We thank you for your continued support. We look forward to sharing further updates with you.