Baldwin in Bangkok building blocks for future research
CQUniversity’s Adele Baldwin has recently returned from Bangkok where she participated at the Asia-Pacific Regional Consultative Meeting to Advance the Application of the Bangkok Rules.
Associate Professor Baldwin was invited to the event by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the Thailand Institute of Justice, as part of the global process to review, update and discuss the Bangkok Rules (the United Nations Rules for the Treatment of Women Prisoners and Non-custodial Measures for Women Offenders first launched in 2010).
The meeting brought together some 30 policymakers, prison and probation practitioners, government representatives and non-government organisations (NGOs) who are actively engaged in advancing the application of the Bangkok Rules with a view to sharing experiences, knowledge, good practice, identify gaps and discuss priority areas.
Assoc Prof Baldwin said the three-day event was an extraordinary opportunity to network and build new professional relationships for future research and scholarly activity.
“I am now in initial discussions to undertake collaborative work/consultations with universities, government agencies and NGOs from a number of countries in the region such as Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia and Fiji,” Assoc Prof Baldwin said.
Assoc Prof Baldwin is Head of Course for Correctional Nursing at CQUniversity and was also the lead researcher in CQUniversity’s Midwifery Prison Project – an initiative that aims to support prison inmates through pregnancy, birth and the postnatal period to establish vital connections with their newborns.
Advocating from a health perspective, Assoc Prof Baldwin said she was successful in focusing some discussion in Bangkok on the needs of pregnant women in prison.
“One of the highlights of the meeting was spending an afternoon at the Central Women’s Correctional Institution in Bangkok, seeing the real life impact of the Bangkok Rules in a large women-only prison (as pictured).”
