Eighteen police and prison professionals in various establishments in Bosnia and Herzegovina have received their human rights trainer accreditations this week. This accreditation recognises the local professionals skills in designing, developing, implementing and evaluating human rights training programme based on the European standards and guidelines and implemented in a series of EU co-funded projects over the years.

The train the trainer programme enabled multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of persons deprived of liberty in custodial environment, starting from the moment of apprehension and deprivation of liberty, during escort within the custodial environment and leading to the offender management programmes in prison facilities. Peer training skills were assessed, documented and verified for the 18 local professionals who are expected to continue delivering human rights training modules within the framework of the EU/CoE joint initiatives but also their respective agencies.

One of the core trainers in the Court Police of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina believes that these activities contribute to further professionalisation and transparency of the police officers' work in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This agency is also among the first ones to include human rights training modules in the institutional annual training programme.

''These accreditations are a confirmation and recognition of our serious work invested over the past few years in improving work of police officers with persons deprived of liberty and, in general, our training and presentation skills. The Train the Trainer programme delivered through a series of joint EU-Council of Europe projects focusing on police agencies is a result of the sustainable and long-term efforts to improve policing work based on human rights in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

This is also a sign of trust placed in us by our managers, enabling us to support colleagues in meeting European standards in their daily work with persons deprived of liberty'', says Senad Ćatić, one of the core trainers in the Council of Europe projects and also Head of the Court Police Centre in Una-Sana Canton.

Peer training among law enforcement and prison staff in human rights modules continues throughout this year with the support of the action ‘’Strengthening human rights treatment of detained persons based on European standards and best practices in Bosnia and Herzegovina’’ , which is a part of the joint European Union and the Council of Europe programme “Horizontal Facility for the Western Balkans and Turkey 2019-2022”, implemented by the Council of Europe.