Paraguay's Ministry of Justice announced on Monday (18) a broad restructuring of the female prison system, which will make the Emboscada Penitentiary Complex the only prison exclusively for women in the entire country. The decision was announced during a press conference on Operation Umbral 2.5, a mega-operation to transfer inmates.
Minister Rodrigo Nicora reported that, as of now, the mixed penitentiaries in Pedro Juan Caballero, Concepción, Misiones, Encarnación, and Villarrica have been eliminated. He also confirmed the definitive closure of the Juana María de Lara Women's Penitentiary Center, located in Ciudad del Este.
“The Paraguayan penitentiary system is experiencing a historic transformation,” Nicora declared. He stated that the measure seeks to correct structural problems related to the coexistence of men and women in shared facilities. “We have thus culminated a stage marked by vulnerabilities in the system, with security problems that have to do with the mixing of men and women,” he added.
The minister also highlighted that the reform represents a response to a historical debt with women deprived of liberty. “We can say that the Government has settled a historical debt with the penitentiary system and, above all, with the most vulnerable population, which are women deprived of liberty,” he said.
The announcement was made within the scope of Operation Umbral 2.5, which is already underway and involves the transfer of inmates to the Emboscada Complex, as part of the process of modernizing and reorganizing the national prison system.