A/HRC/34/73 were 3,182) and a limited number of persons awaiting trial for a reasonably short period of time were deprived of their liberty. 46. Fortunately, and exceptionally, there is no overcrowding in the new prison built in the municipality of Cabaret, near Port-au-Prince, which the Independent Expert visited in October 2016. The prison was already housing 254 women, 17 of whom were minors from the Pétion-Ville women’s prison, and has a capacity of 300. Each prisoner has a decent place to sleep. This prison is therefore an example of a facility that is not overcrowded and is, in addition, clean and equipped with an education service for minors. 47. However, there is no drinking water in the facility and privacy is not guaranteed in the showers or toilets, although this could be very easily remedied through the use of plastic curtains, which can be purchased at a minimal cost. There is a higher proportion of male guards in the prison than of female guards, which poses a risk to the safety and privacy of female prisoners. There must also be spaces for prisoners to work. Recreation time is limited to three hours per week in a courtyard and there is a refectory that is not in use, apparently because the prison authorities are afraid of not having enough officers to monitor the prisoners in these locations. 48. During his fifth visit to the country, in February 2016, the Independent Expert also visited the Croix-des-Bouquets prison on the outskirts of Port-au-Prince. The detention conditions in the prison were better than in the other detention centres that he had visited on previous occasions. The overcrowding rate still exceeded the prison’s capacity by 50 per cent, as some 1,105 detainees were being housed in a structure built to hold approximately 760 people. Only 330 prisoners had been convicted. The remaining 775 (or 70 per cent of the prison’s population) were persons being held in pretrial detention, despite the fact that Croix-des-Bouquets prison had been built to house convicts only. 49. In the prison, the Independent Expert met a man who had been in pretrial detention since December 2012, or more than three years. Accused of having bought a weapon that was allegedly stolen, he could face a prison sentence of one and a half years if convicted. He had never come before a judge. 50. According to the prison director, family visits to Croix-des-Bouquets prison had been suspended since September 2015 owing to the public order situation and popular protests prompted by the election results. This, however, is not sufficient justification for depriving the prisoners of the right to receive visits from their relatives for more than a year. 51. As is the case in the prison in Cabaret, the recreation time in Croix-des-Bouquets prison is capped at less than one hour per day in a courtyard, as the guards do not feel that they are sufficient in number to thwart an escape attempt. This could also be the reason why the refectory is not in use, despite the fact that it has the capacity to accommodate 100 people. 52. The prisons in Cabaret and Croix-des-Bouquets have experienced fewer difficulties than the other places of deprivation of liberty in the country, most of which offer extremely poor living conditions as regards space per person, toilets, health services, food, and opportunities for prisoners to work or study. Generally speaking, the conditions in Haitian prisons amount to inhuman and degrading treatment. The Independent Expert reiterates the invitation that he extended to the Haitian authorities in his previous reports to make these places more humane by guaranteeing persons deprived of their liberty decent living conditions, in accordance with universal standards for the treatment of prisoners. The Haitian authorities should, at the very least, seek to emulate the example of the prison in Cabaret. C. Elections and the rule of law 53. The most pressing institutional challenge that the Haitian authorities had to face in 2016 was that of the elections, but there are other serious shortcomings in the rule of law that should be noted. 10 GE.17-03747