The five-day event, which starts on 20 April, will be attended by 70 health professionals and officials working mainly in places of detention. It aims to promote the proper management of medical care and basic health standards in prisons in Kurdistan Region.

“Diseases can spread more easily within prison walls than outside, because of the closed conditions and overcrowding,” says Dr Jose Bastos Amigo, an ICRC doctor who visits places of detention in Iraq. “Prisoners have the same right to proper medical care as everyone else and should be given equal access to early diagnosis, adequate treatment and sustained follow-up care – as much for their own benefit as for that of others.”

The workshop represents a further step in the ICRC’s efforts to support prison authorities in fulfilling their obligations under international humanitarian law by ensuring that detainees’ basic needs, including health care, are met. ICRC experts in the fields of health and detainee welfare from Geneva and Amman will be conducting the workshop.

“These types of events enable us to share useful tools and techniques with medical personnel working in prisons and with public health authorities. They also give everyone a chance to exchange information and learn from the experiences of others,” says Marco Jaminki, head of the ICRC office in Kurdistan Region.

The ICRC regularly visits persons detained by the Asayish (the security forces of Kurdistan Region) and by the Kurdistan Region Ministries of the Interior and of Labour and Social Welfare to assess the conditions of detention and the treatment of detainees. The ICRC also visits places of detention run by the Multi-National Force in Iraq and the Iraqi Ministry of Justice.