Zambia

Although Zambia is well endowed with natural resources, the majority of the country's population lives in absolute poverty. This is largely a result of several variants of the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP), which have led to drastic reductions in public spending on social services and wide scale retrenchments and redundancies within the workforce. However, poor governance also contributes to the country's high poverty levels.

A number of laws that hinder the advancement of people's rights remain on the statute books, including the Public Order Act. The judicial system is inefficient and politically compromised, and corruption is rife.

Women continue to occupy a low socio-economic status, which is further exacerbated by discriminatory laws. However, the women's movement is a strong and vibrant part of the country's well-developed civil society.

In the last five years civil society has been actively engaged in the constitutional review process. The process is being spearheaded by the Constitutional Conference, which consists of 498 representatives from all sectors of the Zambian population. The conference is working in 11 commissions on major changes, including a new electoral system, an independent electoral council, greater control by parliament over de government, financial guarantees for local governments, and the provision that a presidential candidate requires more than 50% of the votes in order to be elected.

In general the human rights record of Zambia is acceptable. However, there have been in recent years a number of cases of police killings of suspects in detention. The situation in prisons is also cause for concern.