Sudan_ The women’s section of the local port Sudan prison suffers from a clear deterioration in basic services and the absence of minimum care standards, amid increasing pressures resulting from overcrowding, which has given rise to growing demands to improve the humanitarian environment inside the prison.

Sudanese journalist Rashan Oshi, who is serving a one-year prison sentence in a case related to freedom of opinion, has launched a community initiative to rehabilitate the local Port Sudan prison in eastern Sudan, in response to the growing challenges facing the correctional facility, especially the women’s section, which is experiencing notable overcrowding due to rising crime rates and the repercussions of the conflict and its complex social and economic consequences.

Rashan Oshi has called for improving the humanitarian and service environment inside the prison by providing a number of essential projects that contribute to enhancing the dignity of female inmates and improving accommodation and care conditions. These include installing a solar energy system to ensure a stable electricity supply, establishing a specialised clinic for addiction treatment and psychological and social rehabilitation, adding a new drinking water station to meet growing needs, as well as creating a nursery for children accompanying their mothers inside the prison and founding a kindergarten to provide a safe educational environment for children.

In her initiative, she affirmed that prisons are not merely places of punishment, but institutions for reform and rehabilitation, and that providing an appropriate humanitarian environment for inmates is an investment in the security and stability of society and enhances their chances of positive reintegration after the sentence is served.

The initiative calls upon government bodies, civil society organisations, the private sector, and charitable individuals to contribute to supporting the project, in order to achieve a real transformation in the reality of the local Port Sudan women's prison and to preserve their dignity.