Dakar, 13 February, 2025.- Senegal must take bolder steps to guarantee detention conditions consistent with international standards, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Alice Jill Edwards, said today, at the end of an official visit to the country.
“The overcrowding I have seen in prisons is dramatic and inhumane,” Edwards said in a statement.
“I am deeply worried that the overcrowding problem is a tinder keg that could spark at any moment leading to riots, violence, or the rapid and uncontrollable spread of infectious and communicable diseases.”
The Special Rapporteur met prison directors who are serious about doing their best for detainees. However, the scale of overcrowding is such that it is causing them to reduce even the most basic standards, including daily food rations per detainee and guidelines on the separation of different categories of prisoners.
“Exceptional measures need to be adopted urgently to relieve pressure on the penitentiary system and establish dignified conditions for all detainees,” the Special Rapporteur warned.
In all five prisons visited, Edwards observed severely congested sleeping quarters whereby detainees share thin mattresses and sleep head-to-toe. In one location, the dark cavern space beneath the singular long bunk bed, measuring only 40 cm in height, was also being used as sleeping space and was fully occupied.
“Some rooms were quite literally teeming with people. People were sleeping in shifts and in corridors, and there were far too few ablution facilities. Such prison conditions cannot become normalised. The situation is at crisis point.”
“A State owes a special duty of care towards people deprived of their liberty,” Edwards said. “I am very pleased that the Government is prioritising this issue and has already adopted measures in response, such as increased use of electronic-tagging and the construction of new facilities.”
However, she identified several additional emergency measures that the Government could consider, including the automatic reduction of sentences by 20 per cent for prisoners serving sentences of three years or less; and the immediate release of accused who have been on remand for more than one year with the exception of those being held for the most serious offences. She supports the Government’s intention to undertake an overall review of sentencing.
“Even with these measures, the underlying problem will remain unresolved if the upstream challenges of the slow administration of justice are not also addressed,” she warned. “A shift in approach is required, guided by new criteria for prosecutors and judges so that holding people on remand until trial becomes an exception rather than the rule. I have met too many detainees who are being held pending trial for years. It is unacceptable.”
The Special Rapporteur also appealed for the special release of the high number of female detainees held on charges related to medical abortion, including in cases of rape and incest, a position at odds with the Maputo Protocol on the Rights of Women in Africa, ratified by Senegal on 27 December 2004. “In the meantime, there is no reason to detain women under these charges,” she said.
Edwards also focused on law enforcement by the police and the gendarmerie in crowd control situations, their investigation practices, and the regulations governing the use of force.
“I urge Senegal to repeal the Amnesty Law providing an immunity from prosecution to those allegedly implicated in using excessive force and other human rights violations that occurred during the protests between March 2021 and February 2024.”
“The Government has an obligation to establish the truth in relation to these events and to provide justice and reparations to victims in a timely manner.”
“I invite the Government of Senegal to consider joining the Alliance for Torture-Free Trade, an international initiative bringing together countries that promote the development of a new international treaty regulating the use, production, financing, promotion and trade in law enforcement equipment and weapons.”
The Special Rapporteur will present a report on her visit to the UN Human Rights Council in March 2026.