THE REPUBLIC OF THE GAMBIA’S COMBINED REPORT ON THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN & PEOPLES’ RIGHTS & INITIAL REPORT ON THE PROTOCOL TO THE AFRICAN CHARTER ON THE RIGHTS OF WOMEN IN AFRICA The NCCE also continuously conducts human rights awareness sensitization in the schools. The school meetings have increased awareness of students on Civic Education as well as their fundamental rights and responsibilities. About 8000 people from 157 communities nationwide were also sensitized on their fundamental human rights as stipulated in the 1997 constitution, the Women’s Act 2010 and the Children’s Act 2005. Support from Independent Partners The United States Embassy regularly sponsors workshops for members of the Armed Forces on international humanitarian law; UNICEF is at the fore-front in assisting Government’s efforts to raise public awareness and that of social workers, the police and members of the Children’s Court on the rights of the child; UNDP provides valuable assistance to Government’s drive to increase access to justice with resources to establish institutions such as the Alternative Dispute Resolution Secretariat (with regional Centres) and the National Agency for Legal Aid, and to train officials of those institutions; the Development Fund for International Development (DFID) of the U.K. Government has over the years assisted both the Ministry of Justice and the Judiciary in conducting training workshops for Lawyers, Judges, and Magistrates. Other public officials are regularly sensitised on human rights issues relative to their sectors. Symposia on the benefits of education, particularly of the girl child, are organised by the Ministry for Basic and Secondary Education in cooperation with The Gambia Teachers Union, UNESCO and NGOs like Concern Universal and Female Lawyers Association of The Gambia (FLAG). The right to life- This is guaranteed in the 1997 Constitution of The Gambia as a fundamental human right from which no derogation is permitted even in time of public emergency, which threatens the life of the nation. However, The Gambia still has the provision of the death penalty. Torture- The prohibition of torture, inhuman or degrading punishment or other treatment is absolute in that even in situations of public emergency this provision is non-derogable. Although the Constitutional prohibition of torture is not yet supported by the creation of a specific offence of torture under the country’s criminal law, the offences in the Criminal Code such as threatening violence, common assault, assault causing actual bodily harm, assault causing grievous bodily harm and laws and regulations such as the Judges Rules and the Evidence Act 1994 have also been put in place to give effect to and prohibit the practice of torture. 119