1. “House of Prevention” - An overview of the preventive approach
SHAZEERA AHMAD ZAWAWI
Asia Pacific Programme
Thank you Mr Chairperson and a very warm welcome to all participants of the Biennal Conference. In 2008, I attended this conference in Kuala Lumpur as a staff with SUHAKAM. I always thought what does it feel presenting to a distinguished group of human rights advocates from the NHRIs and civil society. Now, I am here on this stage and returning to where I started, feels really great.

2. WHAT IS TORTURE PREVENTION?
Torture prevention is a global strategy that intends to reduce risks and create an environment where torture and ill-treatment are less likely to occur.

3. RISKS OF TORTURE Situations of imbalance power
Prevalent at certain period of detention
Potential victims
Persons deprived of liberty
The reality is risks of torture can occur in any situation of imbalance of power. This is where the detained person is totally dependent on the individuals and authorities in charge.
the risk of being tortured or ill-treated can also be higher at certain times or moment after a person is deprived of its liberty:
For example, we learned from the report of the Special Rapporteur on Torture that the risk of torture is high during the initial period of arrest and police custody or perhaps during transfer from one place of detention to another
When persons deprived of their liberty are detained in any closed facility that includes not only prisons and police stations but also, psychiatric facilities, juvenile detention centres, immigration centres and transit zones in int.airport, that person is at risk of being tortured and ill-treated.
Who are the victims at risk? It is difficult to say one person or group are at greater risk of torture and ill-treatment than others. It can also be different groups, depending on the national context. But we can conclude that vulnerable and disadvantage groups within society will commonly face higher risk. This is why in my next slide, you will see, that I also include social/cultural discrimination as a risk factor, as this has link with how vulnerable and disadvantaged groups are being treated in closed facilities.

4. ROOT CAUSES Unstable political environment
Inadequate national legal framework
Inefficient criminal justice system
Malfunctioning institutional environment
Having said that, what are the rootcause that could increase risks of torture? Here, I will refer to 5 factors - Political environment-does the government has the political will and readiness to address and prevent torture?
National Legal Framework- is there any legislations in the country that prohibits torture and ill-treatment? Is there a comprehensive remedy system?If torture and ill-treatment is criminalized, has the perpetrators being charged and prosecuted by the court of justice?
Social/cultural environment-public perception on the use of certain interrogation techniques? Religious leaders’s position over issues relevant to torture and ill-treatment.
Criminal justice system- Are there sufficient resources and technology in evidence gathering? Are officers trained on investigating allegations of torture
Malfunctioning Institutional environment? Are prisons open to oversight? Are corruption rampant in the system and lead to a widespread of impunity
Social perception and cultural factor

5. The three-stages approach : “House of prevention
CONTROL MENCHANISM
 IMPLEMENTATION
To prevent torture and ill-treatment from occurring, the root causes needs to be overcome. This would then reduce the risks of torture and ill-treatment. At APT, we use the house of prevention as a framework for us to identify the three different stages required in the preventive approach. Similarly like the house, each stages of prevention is interrelated. Your efforts to prevent torture will not be comprehensive and effective if the wall or roof is missing. So what are these stages?
FOUNDATION OF THE HOUSE
First, an effective legal framework must be in place that both prohibits and prevents torture and other form of ill-treatment. This can be making a torture a crime in domestic law or states ratifying treaties such as UNCAT and OPCAT
WALLS
Secondly, these laws and regulations need to be applied in practice. Implementation of these laws and regulations would require law reform, capacity building of law enforcement for example.
ROOF
Finally, control mechanisms should be in place in order to check both whether the legal framework exists and whether it is implemented. Control mechanism can be in the form of monitoring, awareness raising and partnership between civil society and relevant agencies as well as international bodies.
LEGAL FRAMEWORK

6. TORTURE PREVENTION & NHRIS
LEGAL FRAMEWORK
Encourage States to ratify UNCAT & OPCAT
Advocate legal reforms to make torture a crime
Litigate to demand for compliance with the absolute prohibition of torture
Advocate for the introduction of exclusionary rule
To have a strong legal foundation or basis for prohibition of torture, NHRIs can and are also known to play a proactive role in promoting ratification of UNCAT or OPCAT. This will certainly helped further work by the NHRIs to advocate for legal reforms so that torture and ill-treatment is criminalized in the domestic laws. Many countries with the exception of very few countries do have prohibition of torture either in their constitution or legislations.
Some NHRIs may also have the mandate to litigate in courts for human rights cases. Such mandate would also allow NHRIs to seek for court’s decision on making sure that torture is not allowed in any criminal procedures such as investigatio or obtaining confession.

7. TORTURE PREVENTION & NHRIS
 IMPLEMENTATION
Training of law enforcement officials
Collect statistical data on allegations, investigations and prosecutions
Promote remedy and redress for victims
Protect victims against reprisal actions.
I would say that NHRI play an important role at this stage as well. We start with training and capacity building of law enforcement officials, judges, lawyers, detention officials and anyone relevant in custody or detention. Some NHRIs are already great work in this area and perhaps this afternoon, we can hear more about how NHRIs are engaging law enforcement. Capacity bulding could be one of these engagements.
Data on allegation of torture , investigation and prosecution is also useful in anaylzing the patterns and factors contributing to the problem. Hence data collection should not be taken lightly and could lead to better implementation of policies or practices to prevent torture.
Victims of torture and even their family members are entitiled to remedy and redress. NHRIs could assist and support the victims of torture by promoting appropriate remedies for victims. This can be achieved by recommending better laws and regulations or even the system to award remedies so that the process will not prolonged the suffering of the victim. Another issue is of course reprisal against victims who step forward to lodged complaints against the perpetrators.NHRIs can allocate or provide a platform for victims to seek protection or assistance from the NHRIs in such circumstances-

8. TORTURE PREVENTION & NHRIS
CONTROL MENCHANISM
Follow up on recommendations for ratification of UNCAT and OPCAT
Act as source of information to special procedures
Monitoring places of detention- linked to NHRI & NPM mandate
National and pubic inquiry
Partnership with civil society
NHRIs are engaging treaty bodies and human rights councils more over the years. During UPR for example, governments will make, accept or reject recommendations from other states including recommendations on ratification of treaties. NHRIs may follow up on the recommendations domestically with governments and other national actors to ensure these recommendations can be accepted and implemented.
NHRIs are also focal points for special procedures or treaty bodies to gain information from. For OPCAT state parties, NHRIs provide information on the conditions of places of detention and other key issues related to torture and ill treatment to the SPT. This information would help SPT plan better for their visits. In other instances, NHRIs also provide information to Special Rapporteurs or thematic working groups.
Another important role under this stage for nhris is monitoring. For non-OPCAT state parties, NHRIs already has existing mandate to visit places of detentions while for OPCAT state parties, NHRIs maybe designated as the NPM and in this cases, proper coordination and separation of roles is necessary. We will hear more about the OPCAT and NHRIs after this session.

9. Supporting capacity building and motivation for torture prevention in Asia Pacific
The APT has been supporting the work of some NHRIs in torture prevention in the Asia Pacific for a while now. We either outreach and offer our support directly to NHRIs in our priority countries or we engage and collaborate with regional bodies such as the APF. I will take this opportunity to share some of our experiences today:

10. APF-APT COOPERATION
West Asian blended learning course on torture prevention.
Five blended learning courses on key thematic issues in torture prevention: Migrants in Detention (2 courses) and Police Detention (1 course) delivered sub-regionally; and Investigating Allegations of Torture (2 courses) delivered regionally.
Torture Prevention
Ambassadors
First, is the APF and APT 3 year cooperation. This interesting and important cooperation covers two main initiatives- one is five blended learning courses and the other is the torture prevention ambassador project. The cooperation that started in 2014, sees APF-APT providing training opportunities either to NHRIs in specific sub regions or to all NHRIS across the Asia Pacific region. The cooperation not only aims at building specific capacity and knowledge among NHRI staff and commissioners working on torture prevention but also enhancing NHRIs commitment and motivation to work on this area. We will here more about the experiences and insights from our TPA in the afternoon and we hope that their sharing will inspire others to replicate similar or other initiatives with your NHRIs.

11. TOOLS/ RESOURCES
Promoting international standards and guidelines related to detention places.
Mainstreaming gender and other vulnerable groups.
Resource for everyone
Second is of course the development of tools and resources to help NHRIs in their torture prevention work. The APT recently launched the detention database. I also brought some flyers on the database or if you are really interested, please visit the database on our website. On the website you will also see our other resources eg manuals on detention monitoring and briefing papers on NHRIs as NPM.
Speaking of resources and tools, the VLE used for the online courses of the blended learning also provides additional resources for users /participants that attended the trainings. As for existing resources from the APF Biennal Conference, perhaps the Reference on Torture by the ACJ in 2005 needs to be revisited.

12. OTHER POTENTIALS Regional NHRIs cooperation e.g. SEANF
Working with regional mechanisms e.g. ASEAN.
Working with other regional NHRI networks e.g. NANHRI.
Last but not least, I would like to flag some other interesting developments around cooperation of NHRIs in the region.

13. Torture prevention is not about asking what happened and how it happened, but asking why it happens and how we can stop it happening."
Victor Rodriguez,
UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture

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