Even Dead Bodies Must Work - Office of the High Commissioner for ...

prisoner, who was asked whether he or she was willing to participate, and offered anonymity.
Prisoners were told that they could end the interview at any time or decline to answer any
questions without negative consequence. All interviews were conducted privately, with one
prisoner at a time. Each prisoner interviewed and quoted in this report has been given a
pseudonym to protect the prisoner’s identity and for the prisoner’s security; surnames have
been omitted to conceal prisoners’ ethnicities.
Prisoners who were interviewed averaged an age of 31 years. Overall, the most common
charges of the prisoners interviewed were theft, murder, and defilement. The time the
prisoners interviewed had spent detained ranged considerably between the different types
of prisons visited, averaging 22 months, but highest among prisoners at farm prisons (on
average 48 months). Prisoners often reported having been moved between prisons, and the
time prisoners had spent in the facility in which they were interviewed also varied
considerably, but averaged nine months.
Human Rights Watch researchers also conducted facility tours and interviewed 30 prison
staff members at the 16 prisons visited, in addition to the Uganda Prisons Service medical
authority. In some cases, official titles of individuals are not given for security reasons or at
the request of the individual. At the conclusion of field research, Human Rights Watch sent a
letter to the Uganda Prisons Service commissioner general of prisons on April 8, 2011, (see
Appendix) requesting a response by April 29, 2011 to numerous issues raised in the report;
Human Rights Watch did not receive an official response to this letter within the timeframe.
Human Rights Watch again requested a response on May 13, 2011, and provided an
additional summary of the issues presented in the report on May 16, 2011, at the request of
prison authorities. An email response from prison authorities to some of the questions
Human Rights Watch had posed was received by email on May 19, 2011, and by letter on
June 29, 2011, as this report went to press. That information is reflected throughout the
report.
Researchers also interviewed 15 members of the communities surrounding Sentema,
Kasangati, and Ntenjeru Prisons (all Central Region), and three prison officers at those
prisons, specifically about the practice of hiring out prisoner labor to private landowners.
Finally, researchers interviewed 18 representatives from local and international
organizations working on prison, HIV/AIDS, and health issues; health workers within the
Ugandan government; and donor governments and agencies.
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