DUSHANBE, March 5, 2013, Asia-Plus — The training center for penitentiary system officers officially opened in Dushanbe on March 4.
The ceremony was attended by a British delegation led by Baroness Vivien Helen Stern, Member of the British House of Lords.
The United Kingdom has provided 15,000 pounds (GBP) for renovation of the center and purchase of computers and furniture for it.
“It is my third visit to Tajikistan. I try to arrive here every year in order to see the progress and development in the country with my own eyes. The British Government is interested in supporting Tajikistan,” Baroness Stern noted during the center-opening ceremony.
She also expressed hope that the center will provide a platform for active debates and sharing ideas on how to develop that sphere.
Tajik Human rights Ombudsman Zarif Alizoda noted that the center would useful for all.
Bahrom Abdulhaqov, the deputy head of Tajik penitentiary system, noted that international human rights standards would be used for conducting training at the center.
Born on September 25, 1941, Baroness Stern became a lecturer in education in 1970 and in 1977 she became the director of NACRO, a post she held until 1996. She was a visiting fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford, from 1984 to 1991, and was Secretary General of Penal Reform International from 1989 until 2006. In 1997 she was appointed a Senior Research Fellow of London University, based at the International Centre for Prison Studies in King”s College London.
She was awarded a CBE in 1992 and was raised to the peerage as Baroness Stern of Vauxhall in the London Borough of Lambeth in 1999. She has been a member of several parliamentary committees and is currently a member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Statutory Instruments. She lists her political interests as criminal justice, foreign affairs, human rights, international development, penal reform, and prisons, and has written several books, including
Creating Criminals: Prisons and People in A Market Society
;
Bricks of Shame: Britain”s Prisons
;
Failures in Penal Policy; Imprisoned by Our Prisons: A Programme for Reform
(Fabian Series);
The Prisons We Deserve and A Sin Against the Future: Imprisonment in the World
.
Baroness Stern is a patron of several charities including the Venture Trust, the Prisoners” Education Trust, New Bridge Foundation, the Royal Philanthropic Society, Clean Break, and Rethink.
She was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1992. She has honorary doctorates from Bristol University, Oxford Brookes University, the University of Stirling and the University of Edinburgh and is an Honorary Fellow of the London School of Economics.
