Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1499169
12 NEWS maltatoday | SUNDAY • 14 MAY 2023 Substandard conditions still the norm for migrants Watchdog highlights desultory conditions of detained migrants MATTHEW VELLA A national monitoring committee over- seeing the health and housing condi- tions of detained migrants has called for an immediate overhaul of two Ħal Far detention centre blocks. The Monitoring Board for Detained Persons said the Ħal Far 'block A' build- ing and the nearby 'China House' block were built over 50 years ago and re- quired an immediate overhaul. The board, which is chaired by lawyer Simon Micallef Stafrace, called for the appointment of an architect to in- spect and report on urgent works needed to safe- guard the safety of detained per- sons. The observa- tions were made in a report on the 2021 inspections of detention centres, tabled in the House of Representatives earlier this week, which are mandatory requirements under Malta's adherence with the Council of Europe's Conven- tion Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. As in previous reports, the Board re- iterated various measures aimed at im- proving the quality of life of detained persons and the detention services. These included giving detained asylum seekers access to lawyers and a list of NGOs to understand their legal rights, from the very out set of deprivation of their liberty. This also includes a list of interpreters for detainees, and incen- tives to custodial staff to learn specific languages regularly present at the cen- tres. The board said a record should be maintained of any request by a person detained to see his lawyer, and wheth- er such a request was granted, with a waiver of the right to legal assistance to be signed by the detainee if they do not wish to exercise their right of access to a lawyer. The board also called for steps to en- sure adequate access to dentistry, psy- chiatric care and psychological assis- tance for all incoming detainees. The board insisted that custodial staff should be trained to provide first aid which will include the application of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) whenever the nurse is not present. "It is recommended that the recurrent train- ing is to all custodial staff and nursing staff on social, social health and cus- tomer care including a clear message that on use of excessive force and any verbal abuse as well as any form of dis- respectful or provocative behaviour will not be tolerated." The board said that detainees must be able to spend several hours per day outside more than the minimum re- quirements so that they would engage in purposeful activities, as well as a des- ignated area for sports and training with suitable equipment. "Authorities should extend the pos- sibilities for contact with the outside world, in particular for those who are being detained for prolonged periods. This could be done by allowing them to use VolP tech- nologies on a free of charge bases to communicate with the outside world." The board has repeatedly recom- mended the setting up of a comput- er room, equipped with a number of computers and monitored by detention staff. "Such uses of computers are used in other countries detention centres. There are clear benefits in providing an opportunity for detainees to further their education during the period of detention, and to have other means of entertainment besides television." The board also called for charities and NGOs to be able to provide detainees with schemes that allow them to per- form duties beneficial to them from an educational, vocational and financial point of view. With detainees forced to hang clothes on mattresses in a yard or against win- dows, the board said the Detention Ser- vices Unit should avoid such shabbiness by giving detainees fire-resistant and easy-clean mattresses and encourage detainees to wash their linen regular- ly. The board said there was no proper clothes drying facilities. It also said the refusal of asylum sta- tus should not be notified to all detain- ees at the same time. "They should be informed of the interview outcome in- dividually and privately and in human- itarian professional manner. Staggering such bad news may mitigate the up- heaval caused at the Centre when all the detainees are given the result of a refusal on the same day. The Board welcomes the plan to involve social workers to do this task and to help detainees whenever it is needed." mvella@mediatoday.com.mt MATTHEW VELLA DESPITE the commitments made in a 2015 strategy document on detention reg- ulations, Maltese detention centres have time and time again been reported to of- fer substandard living conditions likely to amount to inhuman and degrading treat- ment contrary to the European Conven- tion of Human Rights. In a report from human rights organ- isation Aditus for AIDA, the asylum information database, NGOs remain unable to provide proper information on the state of the living quarters after losing access in 2020 and being only al- lowed to visit detainees in a boardroom on the margin of the Safi Detention Centre. The detention centres are managed by the Detention Service (DS), a govern- ment body which falls under the Min- istry for Home Affairs. DS staff receive some in-service training, however peo- ple recruited for the post of DS officer or seconded from the Security Services are not required to have particular skills or competencies. In 2020, a delegation from the UN Human Rights Office visited Malta to find migrants living in severely over- crowded conditions with little access to daylight, clean water, and sanitation. The High Commissioner for Human Rights in 2021 underlined the failure of the government "to ensure safe dis- embarkation and adequate reception of migrants, with rescued migrants being stranded aboard vessels that are un- suited for their accommodation, held in inadequate reception conditions upon disembarkation, including being at risk of arbitrary immigration detention, and facing obstacles to access immediate as- sistance such as medical care." In 2021, the Committee for the Preven- tion of Torture, another UN monitoring body, reported a catastrophic situation, saying Malta's immigration system sim- ply "contained" migrants who had es- sentially been forgotten, "within poor conditions of detention and regimes which verged on institutional mass ne- glect by the authorities." In January 2022, the Maltese govern- ment provided the Council of Europe's committee of minister – responsible for the execution of judgements from the European Court of Human Rights – with updates on the judgement Feilazoo v. Malta, claiming that 86% of Safi De- tention Centre detainees were living in refurbished or brand new compounds, that it had increased outdoor activities to three hours of outdoor space, and improved communication with families outside. It further reported professional football coaches giving weekly football sessions, and capoeira classes for female detainees. Launching the Migrant Health Ser- vice in 2021, the government said it had reduced 80% of referrals to the health centres and Mater Dei A&E, and intro- duced a Close Monitoring Unit to pro- vide separate accommodation for high- risk persons, and a Welfare Officer. But in reply, the CoE's Committee of Ministers requested "more detailed and extensive information" on whether these measures were sufficient to reme- dy the inadequate conditions of deten- tion highlight by the CPT visit in 2020. In July 2022, Aditus Foundation re- leased a series of testimonies from de- tainees who had been held for 18 to 25 months in both China House and Safi between December 2019 and April 2022. The testimonies confirmed the living conditions had not improved suf- ficiently since the CPT's visit. Further testimonies confirmed that the situation had not improved sufficiently. "One of the applicants claims he was detained in complete isolation for 147 days in a container in the so-called CMU unit due to being diagnosed with tuberculo- sis," Aditus reported in its AIDA report. "Accordingly, NGOs report that deten- tion conditions are still substandard with little improvement since the CPT's visit, beyond the overcrowding linked to