Enhancing Health care and Human Rights protection in prisons in Armenia

This 30-months project is part of the Council of Europe Action Plan for Armenia 2019-2022. It is implemented by the Council of Europe in cooperation with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Health and the Penitentiary Medicine Center.

The aim of the project is to further support the national authorities in reforming healthcare provision and human rights for sentenced persons in Armenia in line with the European standards.

Attention will be given to the following three areas:

enhancing regulatory and operational framework for provision of in line with European standards;
improvement of the material conditions and the provision of healthcare in prisons;
capacity building of the Penitentiary Medicine Centre (PMC).

The project will particularly focus on the improvement of prison healthcare services through introduction of new technologies in healthcare services, such as telemedicine and electronic database system of medical records, ensuring protection of healthcare rights of mentally-ill persons in penitentiary institutions, improvement of preventive healthcare, particularly sanitary-epidemiological and hygienic conditions and control mechanism, modernizing hospital/specialized medical care and services in the penitentiary institutions. Project activities should significantly contribute to improving effectiveness, transparency and accountability of penitentiary prison healthcare in general and the PMC in particular. Proper documentation and reporting on indications of torture, ill-treatment, inhumane and degrading treatment will stay in focus and addressed.

The amount devoted to this project is 750,000 Euros and its implementation started in November 2019 to end in December 2022.

Project documentation

Useful information

PROJECT NEWS

Back CoE HELP Course on CPT Standards launched in Armenia

@ Council of Europe

A group of 24 professionals from the Ministry of Justice, the Prison Medicine Centre and the Human Rights Defender’s Office got acquainted with the Council of Europe (CoE) HELP course on the Council of Europe’s Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CPT) standards. The HELP course is an online learning tool, that will help the medical and no-medical prison staff during the next six weeks to increase their knowledge and skills on the CPT standards in prison facilities.

The virtual launching event was opened by Mr Maxime Longangué, the Deputy Head of the CoE Office in Yerevan and Mr Armen Hovhannisyan, the Deputy Minister of Justice. Both highlighted the importance of education and training for the medical and non-medical prison staff as a significant part of the current reforms in the penitentiary system that aims to ensure the quality health care to inmates.

The vice-president of the CPT Dr Hans Wolff, representatives of the CPT and HELP Secretariats and national HELP tutor presented the work of the CPT, the Human Rights Education Programme of the Council of Europe as well as the structure of the course and the practical aspects, thus providing the participants with the necessary information for the online learning.

In addition to the HELP course, specialized training sessions on specific topics such as inter alia medical screening upon admission, dealing with mental health issue in prison will complete and strengthen the knowledge of the medical and non-medical staff within the project timeframe.

The launching events was held on 9 March 2021 within the framework of the Council of Europe project “Enhancing health care and human rights protection in prisons in Armenia” financed by the Action Plan for Armenia 2019 -2022.

Armenia 12 March 2021