Paraguay's Ministry of Justice began Operation Umbral 2.5 in the early hours and morning of this Sunday, transferring female inmates to the Women's Prison Complex (Comple), located in Emboscada. The operation, under the custody of the National Defense Council (CODENA), aims to centralize female incarceration in the country.
The inmates are being taken from different prisons that house female wings. This is the second major transfer since October 2025, when over 600 women were moved from the former Buen Pastor prison in Asunción to Comple. The Ministry of Justice has not yet disclosed the exact number of inmates transferred in this new phase, nor the number of those awaiting trial and those convicted among them.
The National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture (MNP) had already noted in a recent report that serious human rights violations persist at Comple, especially regarding women diagnosed with mental health conditions. The body pointed out a lack of systematic psychotherapeutic and psychiatric care, insufficient medication, and prolonged use of isolation in maximum-security regimes, where inmates remain 22 hours a day in cells and have only two hours of outdoor time in a small enclosed yard. According to the MNP, these conditions violate international standards and negatively impact the inmates' mental health.