By EARYEL BOWLEG

Tribune Staff Reporter

ebowleg@tribunemedia.net

MORE than 1,000 books collected in a month-long drive led by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will be distributed to inmates at the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services and detainees at the Immigration Detention Centre, officials said yesterday.

The ministry’s Human Rights and Human Security Bureau organised the drive in partnership with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) Caribbean Office. Officials delivered books yesterday to the Bahamas Department of Correctional Services.

The initiative followed a tour of the prison by the Bureau of Human Rights after the 2024 visit of the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. During that tour, officials noted the staff’s efforts to maintain reading resources for inmates and moved to bolster those efforts with OHCHR support to enhance dignity, well-being, and rehabilitation through access to books.

Donations came from the wider Bahamian community, diplomatic missions, the UN Human Rights Office and ministry staff. Genres include motivational and self-help, religious and inspirational works, novels and comics, skill-building and educational materials, history and biography, and foreign language books.

Andrea Sweeting, the facility’s director of education and training, said the prison library holds “approximately 2,000 plus books” and expects the donation to expand the collection to “about 3,000 plus”. She said the new books should be on shelves next week as the library undergoes renovation.

The facility’s director of education and training, Andrea Sweeting, said this donation far exceeds previous contributions, effectively doubling the library’s collection and helping more inmates access materials that can reduce recidivism.

Quincy Parker, of the OHCHR CARICOM regional office, said the agency’s focus on education and broader human rights. “The thing about human rights is that we have this association with them,” he said. “People believe that when you say human rights, you mean the rights of immigrants, the rights of criminals, the rights of people in the LGBTQ community. Those things are true, but you also mean the right of every person to self-determination. You mean the right of every human being to live their convictions.”