17 September 2013 - In line with South Sudan's plan to transform its prisons into rehabilitation centres, UNMISS is providing skills training to inmates of Tibek Prison in the Jonglei State capital Bor.

The mission's Corrections Advisory Unit in the state is training five female prisoners in tailoring and five male prisoners in carpentry.

"When they are discharged, (the inmates will have acquired) knowledge that will help them to start their new (lives)," said UNMISS Corrections Officer Olademiji Odusanya. "They will not even think of committing some crimes."

The mission's Corrections Advisory Unit is also providing veterinary services to a goat-rearing project managed by the prison center. This will help the prison to generate income of its own, said project manager and trainer John Mayen.

In an interview last year, South Sudan National Prisons Director General Abel Makoi Wol said it was important for prison officials to implement Section 43 of the country's Prisons Act, which states that treatment of inmates should be based on a view of prison as a place of reform that can change criminals into law-abiding citizens.

"We need to move from simply locking up offenders to providing rehabilitation," said Gen. Wol at the time.