By Lindiwe Sibande

The COVID-19 pandemic has been an immense shock to societies and economies globally. In more recent months, as a second more severe wave has affected more low-income countries, pre-existing strains on resources and gaps in institutional capacity have further been exacerbated. This article discusses the impact that COVID-19 has had on children in Malawi and further illustrates the additional impact faced by children in conflict with the law.

By Susie Kiely

Practical sociocultural, educative and incentivising strategies are what is needed to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic nationally, not - though popular the world over - the transfer of the burden to the blunt instrument of criminal law, which often proves ineffective and dangerous, and disproportionally disadvantages the most vulnerable of society.

By Tyler Holmes

Through late February, three times as many official cases of Covid-19 have been identified in 2021 as there were in 2020. And police warnings about using force to affect the lockdown have come true in beatings and arrests.

by Lawyer Andrea Vizsolyi, Director of IRLI’s Public Prosecution’s Programme from our Malawi Project.

Resources for those with mental health conditions in Malawi are severely limited (there is only one psychiatric hospital in the country), and criminal justice actors lack requisite sensitivity and/or knowledge in dealing with mental health conditions. This makes the frequent limbo of such accused persons dangerous to themselves and those surrounding them.

Since the outbreak of COVID-19 in Malawi, IRLI has provided over 35,000 cloth masks for all prisoners and prison staff in 31 prisons and reformatory centres.

On July 17th 2020 IRLI released a joint civil society statement calling for renewed efforts to decongest Malawi’s prisons, following recent confirmed cases of COVID-19 in two separate prisons across Malawi.