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	International meeting on the treatment of women prisoners by Marie Cacace Penal Reform International   Senior prison officials and 15 international, regional and local non-governmental organisations (NGOs) from across the Middle East and North Africa, gathered in August 2009 in Amman, Jordan. They were joined by the United Nations Organisation for Drugs and Crime and members of the Thai group Enhancing Lives of Female Inmates which, leads the international drafting process of the United Nation Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders.   At the roundtable in Amman organised by Penal Reform International and Foundations of the Future, 40 participants offered perspectives on how female prisoners are treated, within the different social and cultural contexts in which they work and live. Representatives included senior prison officials, including the head of prison administration in Sudan, and the head of prison administration in Jordan.   The meeting confirmed the global trend over the past decade which has seen the number of female prisoners increase. It reinforced the fact that imprisoned women are often neglected; their living conditions poor, basic services inadequate, opportunities for rehabilitation and preparation before release limited, and that prison designs and services frequently fail to meet women’s specific needs.   The meeting was held in an attempt to sensitise relevant governmental bodies as well as NGOs to the importance of these Draft Rules as a means to influence international policy and to implement the Rules after their adoption.   At the end of the meeting, participants came up with a detailed document providing comments on the Draft Rules. Comments ranged from the status of pregnant female women and their babes, women in conflict regions, alternatives to imprisonment, to foreign and refugee female prisoners. These comments will be submitted on the 23-26 November 2009 in Bangkok to finalise the Draft Rules before their final adoption, as international standards, by relevant United Nations bodies next year.   * Penal Reform International is an international non-governmental organisation working on penal and criminal justice reform worldwide. PRI has regional programmes in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East and North Africa, Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia, the South Caucasus and North America. They also have worked with partner organisations in South Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, for more international news visit the link below. Visit the related web page
	Victims of apartheid continue to seek justice by NRC International (Netherlands) South Africa   Oct 2009   South African government supports a case against several Western companies that did business with the white rulers.   Mpho Masemola has pieces of shrapnel in his skull. So many that no doctor dares try to remove them. They have been there since the early nineteen eighties. That was when Mpho Masemola, still in secondary school, got involved in the underground struggle against the apartheid regime. During a riot, police drove him and a number of other activists into a house. Once they were inside, the house was fired upon from all sides. He had not yet finished secondary school when he was sent to Robben Island as a political prisoner in 1985. Years of torture followed. Mpho Masemola lives in a modest home in the township KwaThema, an hour’s drive east of Johannesburg. He has an impressive collection of medical documents citing 25 years of headaches, Masemola cannot tolerate daylight, the doctors wrote.   X-rays of Masemola’s skull are now sitting at a court in New York. They are evidence against private companies he is holding liable for the torture and the fact that he missed out on a good education and decent work. Masemola is demanding compensation from German arms supplier Rheinmetall AG because he claims this company provided equipment and logistical support to the security troops of the apartheid regime. Computer companies like American IBM and Japanese Fujitsu are also being asked to cough up: they supplied the computer systems that reportedly enabled the white rulers to implement the hated Pass laws.   US lawyer Michael Hausfeld filed suit on behalf of Masemola and twelve other claimants against these companies in the US because of their support for the South African regime. Hausfeld is a renowned specialist in the area of "class action suits", a form of lawsuit where a large group of people collectively bring a claim to court. The companies support, the lawyer stated in his complaint, "had a substantial effect on the perpetration of its criminal and tortious activities and was provided with the purpose of facilitating those activities" They "benefited from apartheid and, consequently, the violence that was used to maintain and enforce it at the expense of the [the plaintiffs.]"   Hausfeld has not yet put a figure on the reparations demanded. "We want substantial compensation," said his South African co-counsel Charles Abrahams. The US suit is brought under the 1789 Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA) from 1789, a two-line law that allows non-US citizens to institute civil proceedings against violators of "the law of nations" in US courts of law. Originally intended to protect ambassadors and international merchants, the ATCA has made a comeback since the nineteen eighties, said ATCA specialist Jonathan Drimmer of Georgetown University in Washington. It was recently used against Shell by relatives of executed Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. This case was settled shortly before trial. A settlement would not be a bad solution for the apartheid case either.   "The victims have waited long enough," said Tshepo Madlingozi of the Khulumani Support Group, an organisation of apartheid victims that is also providing financial support for Mpho Masemola’s legal battle. "A settlement is also often the best solution for the big businesses," said Drimmer. "It means they have lower lawyers fees and can put a stop to the negative publicity." It works out well for the claimants too. "They have come a long way with their case, but the burden of proof remains very difficult nonetheless," he said.   Mpho Masemola and his twelve fellow claimants are not the only ones who are calling the companies to account. Three separate groups of claimants already filed their first complaints in the United States in 2002. Last April a district judge in New York gave Masemola and his fellow claimants the green light to continue their case against the companies in the US. The complaint was initially directed against a great many multinationals, which included Shell and a number of banks that provided the rulers in South Africa with credits to enable the army and police to do their work.   The judge ruled however that the lawyers had not convincingly demonstrated that financial institutions, like Barclays Bank for instance, had caused direct damage to their clients. After long drawn out proceedings only a handful of companies remain. In addition to Rheinmetall and IBM, Daimler, Ford and General Motors are also being sued. Only German company Daimler has responded. It denies ever having worked with the South African security troops. The other companies have refused to comment. The increase in ATCA lawsuits worries large companies, Drimmer said. "There is more case law to call the companies to account. Human rights issues are becoming increasingly important." And that is precisely what the proponents of reparations for apartheid want.   "Our case is not only about the apartheid past, but also about how companies behave in general in countries where human rights are violated," says lawyer Abrahams. We need to send a signal to corporations that if they collude with evil political elites, they will be hunted down and made to pay" said South African professor of political economics Patrick Bond.   "The Shell settlement shows the power of big business can be reversed." Until recently the apartheid claims were a thorn in the side of the South African government. Former president Thabo Mbeki was annoyed at what he called the "judicial imperialism" of the US. His minister of justice wrote to the court in New York saying the South African government advised against continuing proceedings, since it could jeopardise the business climate in South Africa.   But Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, as a "friend of the court", stated there was "no basis" for that assumption. Stiglitz said that if the companies which collaborated with the apartheid regime were called to account, it would in fact create a "better business climate". Reparations will "contribute to South Africa"s growth and development," Stiglitz wrote in a public letter to the judge.   Former archbishop Desmond Tutu, who chaired the Truth and Reconciliation Commission set up after apartheid, also voiced his support for the claims. He pointed out that the companies now being sued never asked the Truth Commission for amnesty. The new South African government of president Jacob Zuma told the court in New York last month that it did not share Mbeki"s objections and relinquished any opposition to the trial.   In the township KwaThema, Mpho Masemolo was ready to defend his case in New York. "Those companies have to learn their lesson," he said. "They made a lot of money out of us from a political system in which workers were oppressed."   After the judge ruled in April of this year that the case was admissible, the companies appealed once again. The case will come before the court again in January 2010. "This is a long process," Masemolo sighed. "I don"t need to pack my suitcase just yet."
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