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Mozambique: UN torture prevention body to visit the second time
8:49 CAT | 17 Oct 2025
FILE - A view of the entrance to Palais Wilson in Geneva, Switzerland, headquarters of the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. [File photo: UN Media]
The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) is scheduled to visit Mozambique for the second time from 20 to 30 October 2025 to assess the country’s implementation of its previous recommendations.
“We are looking forward to evaluate how the Government of Mozambique has acted on the recommendations we made nearly a decade ago, following our 2016 visit,” said Chris Nissen, head of the SPT delegation. “We also look forward to seeing how the country’s national mechanism for preventing torture has improved in its structure and work.”
Mozambique ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (OPCAT) in 2013.
During this mission, the delegation will visit prisons, police stations and other places where people are detained. It will meet with Government and other State officials, representatives of civil society and UN agencies. The delegation will also hold meetings and conduct joint visits with the Mozambican anti-torture watchdog, the National Human Rights Commission (Comissão National dos Direitos Humano), the official National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) of the country.
At the end of the visit, the delegation will present its confidential preliminary observations orally to the Government of Mozambique and to the National Preventive Mechanism. The SPT will then issue a report for the State Party, which will remain confidential until the national authorities request that it be made public, as was the case with the first report, which was welcomed.
Since it began operating in 2007, the SPT has been mandated to visit all States Parties to the OPCAT and to conduct unannounced visits to any places where people are or may be deprived of their liberty. To date, 95 States have ratified the Optional Protocol.
The SPT delegation will be composed of Andrew Christoffel NISSEN, Head of Delegation (South Africa), Uju AGOMOH (Nigeria), Paul LAM SHANG LEEN (Mauritius and Julia KOZMA (Austria), together with two Human Rights Officers from the SPT Secretariat.
The Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture monitors States Parties’ adherence to the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, which to date has been ratified by 95 countries. The Subcommittee is made up of 25 members who are independent human rights experts drawn from around the world, who serve in their personal capacity and not as representatives of States Parties.
The Subcommittee has the mandate to visit States that have ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture, during the course of which it may visit any place where people may be deprived of their liberty and assist those States in preventing torture and ill-treatment. The Subcommittee communicates its observations and recommendations to States through confidential reports, which it encourages countries to make public.
Learn more with our videos on the Treaty Body system and the Subcommittee on the Prevention of Torture
The UN Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture (SPT) will visit #Mozambique from 20 to 30 October 2025 for the 2nd time to assess how the country has acted on the SPT’s previous recommendations and how the national torture prevention mechanism has improved.
— UN Treaty Bodies (@UNTreatyBodies) October 16, 2025
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