The project has two main objectives.

I. The first objective is to provide legal assistance to women in detention at Bunia Central prison

Most women accused of infringing the law are not able to afford the services of an attorney and thus end up spending lengthy time in pre-trial detention or are detained illegally. Convicted women on the other hand, do not use all the legal possibilities available to them under Congolese laws (such as request for conditional release) simply because they do not have attorneys to draft and submit such requests mon their behalf.

By 31 July 2017 a visit conducted at the Bunia Central Prison found that among the 36 women in detention, 24 were in pre-trial detention and 12 were convicted. Among the 24 women in pre-trial detention, 4 had exceeded the maximum duration of pre-trial detention as per Congolese laws. Among the 12 convicted women, 9 were eligible for conditional release, yet no such request had been initiated on their behalf.

II. The second objective of the project is to prepare the socio-economic rehabilitation of women prisoners upon their release

The prison system in Ituri neither provides occupation for women during their time in detention nor prepare for their social reinsertion upon release. Therefore, women spend days wandering in the prison and worrying about their life upon release. This project intends to install a sewing workshop at the Bunia Central prison. This will give women an occupation during the day, teach them a job that will generate income during their detention and upon their release.

Sewing was chosen because:

• it does not require high education background as most women in detention did not attend school;
• there is a high need for tailoring services in Bunia town (most of the population of Bunia wear clothes made locally by tailors, school uniforms are produced locally by tailors- thus former detained mothers could saw school uniforms for their children instead of buying. Also, second hand imported clothes often requires repairs before being sold on the local market. Finally, the growing infrastructure in Bunia town in form of new houses built, calls for decoration material such as curtains that are produced by local tailors);

Feel free to contribute to the project! Asante!

the project will be conducted from January 2018 to december 2018. Bellow are pictures of th beneficiaries.