Key stakeholder's views on conjugal rights in Malawi

In 2014, the Malawi Government established a special law commission to review the Malawi Prisons Act with the aim of aligning it with the dictates of the constitution and applicable international law and principles on the administration, governance and management of prisons and prisoners (Kitta, 2015). Amongst the issues that sparked hot debate in the consultative meetings for this law review was the possibility of including conjugal visitation rights in the new Prisons Act (Nzangaya, 2016; Magombo, 2016; Phiri, 2016).

Some stakeholders embraced the idea since it has the potential of assisting in the rehabilitation and community reintegration of prison inmates, while the majority seriously opposed the possibility of including conjugal rights of prisoners in the prisons act (Magombo, 2016). However, the most important stakeholders’ groups, the prisoners and their spouses, were not consulted, hence their views are not documented anywhere.