7 November 2022
On Friday, 4 November, the Protector of Citizens, in performing the tasks of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM), made a control visit to the Penal-Correctional Institution for Women in Požarevac. The visit team included a representative of the Protector of Citizens and a representative of the Victimology Society of Serbia.
The aim of the visit was to inspect the handling of the recommendations of the NPM from the Report on the visit to the PCI for women, which was carried out in April 2021 and during which the NPM monitored compliance with the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders, known as the Bangkok Rules. That report, together with the authorities' responses, was published in July 2021.
During the visit to the PCI for Women in Požarevac, the NPM team obtained information from the management of the institution and the head of the institution's services on the manner in which the recommendations were handled and reviewed the documentation related to the aforementioned. Further on, the team toured the newly established closed wards in two facilities, as the old pavilion housing the closed ward was displaced, to build a brand-new facility. Also, we conducted several interviews with convicts who were assigned to closed wards, including two who, at the time of the visit, were undergoing the disciplinary measure of solitary confinement.
Cooperation with the institution's management, as before, was good.
