Economic & Social Rights Advocacy (ESRA) Brief

Abstract

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared the outbreak of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) a global pandemic and urged countries to adopt measures to contain the spread of the virus.48 On 30 March 2020, Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni announced a 14 day nation-wide lockdown.49 This was subsequently extended by a further 21 days and when this elapsed on May 5th 2020, it was again extended for another 14 days to enable an expert review of the situation and a determination as to whether lockdown could be lifted or needed to be extended yet again. The outbreak of COVID-19 has highlighted the vulnerability of Uganda’s prison population, whose conditions of incarceration characterized by overcrowding, poor hygiene, lack of adequate nutrition and medication places them at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 Overcrowding is a major challenge confronting Ugandan prisons, with the current prison population estimated to average 319%, highlighting the vast disparity between prisoner numbers and available incarceration capacity.