Grant to RCT partner in Kosovo

RCT has recently been partner in the award of its first-ever grant from the Open Society Institute, a major donor to human rights and democratization projects world-wide, with a particular focus on Eastern Europe. The grant is intended to finance a two-year project which will take place in Kosovo, under the aegis of RCT's local partner organization: the Kosovo Rehabilitation Center for Torture Victims.

The project, starting in early 2011, focuses on preventing torture and CIDTP in Kosovo's prisons and pre-trial detention facilities. KRCT has been monitoring Kosovo's penitentiary system since 2007 and is widely viewed as the leading non-governmental actor in this area in Kosovo. The project has several mutually reinforcing components: monitoring prisons and pre-trial detention facilities, improving co-ordination and best-practice dissemination among monitoring actors in Kosovo, increasing the capacity of medical personnel in the penitentiary system to effectively document signs of abuse, and improving complaints mechanisms within the penitentiary system.

RCT's input into the project consists of technical assistance on all of the above issues, with particular emphasis on complaints mechanisms, the role of medical personnel and best monitoring practice. All of this, taken together, is expected to contribute to reducing torture and CIDTP in Kosovo's pentitentiary system as well as paving the way for eventual ratification of OPCAT and/or institution of an "NPM-like" mechanism in the interim.

Written by Programme Manager Robin Clapp