By: Valeria Handobe

Correctional Service (NCS) Commissioner-General Raphael Hamunyela says allowing conjugal visits would encourage better behaviour among offenders.

The courts currently limit conjugal rights in Namibia.

Hamunyela explained that Namibia follows international offender treatment rules, including the “Nelson Mandela Rules”, despite the limitations.

He said the initiative depends on collaboration between the government and the line ministry to provide a budget for constructing rooms at 14 facilities.

” We are the promoters of rehabilitation. What we know, those rights might make a person behave better if we receive them, but what we want only to say is, yes, we are not against it, we just said we are not in a position to implement it today. Because if the court is to find out, say yes, it should be done in Namibia, then I think it’s a matter of the government first to find the budget to put up the proper facilities for the respect of a human being,” stated Hamunyela.

Hamunyela added that if they were to build rooms, they would need to consider the prison population. 

“However, when we build them, I think the determination is the population to say, in Windhoek, we are having almost…about 1 300 men. And then, how many of them will apply that their wives or their girlfriends will visit them today? 

Hamunyela added: It will be a question of budget to say, if you are to put up the rooms there. How many rooms are we going to build if you are having a population of 1 200, maybe 200, maybe 300 rooms just to be there for conjugal rights? And we have 14 correctional facilities. You need to build those conjugal rights rooms at all those 14 correctional facilities”.