🚺Security and prisons· 2023-2026

Women's prison: two and a half years of an unmet ruling

Unit 5 hit 200% occupancy and its own union took it to the IACHR. A judge fined the Interior Ministry shortly before the new building opened.

ConvictionIn the courts

Figure published by the sources

US$ 46 millones la obra del nuevo Centro de Rehabilitación Femenino de Punta de Rieles (Presidencia, 2024)

Bodies involved

Ministerio del Interior · Instituto Nacional de Rehabilitación

What it is

Unit No. 5 in Colón was for years the country's main women's prison. In November 2024 the Presidency announced construction of a new Female Rehabilitation Centre at Punta de Rieles, with 846 places expandable to 1,015, an investment of around US$ 46 million and an estimated construction period of 21 months; then Minister Nicolás Martinelli presented it as part of the government's initiative to create 3,500 new places, of which that centre and the three units at Libertad would provide 3,000. The project includes modules for trans people and a pre-release sector, and is designed to replace Unit No. 5.

What is questioned

Búsqueda reported on 10 October 2024 that the Prison Workers' Union (Sitrapen), represented by its president Germán Gutiérrez, requested precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights over conditions at Unit 5: 847 women in a facility designed for 424, a 200% overcrowding rate the union described as subhuman conditions affecting the rights to life, physical integrity, health and dignity; it asked to halt new admissions until overcrowding fell to 120%. On 19 March 2026 the same weekly reported that a ruling of 19 February 2026 by judge María Sol Bellomo found the Interior Ministry had failed for two and a half years to comply with a habeas corpus order to improve the unit, whose conditions remained, in the judge's words, in violation of human dignity despite successive extensions, and imposed a fine of 10 adjustable units for each day of non-compliance. According to that report there were then 806 women in a facility designed for 470 — there were 719 in 2023 — with around 30 technical-area professionals for more than 820 inmates and, in operational security, 74 police officers and 27 prison officers across all shifts.

Why it matters to you

The State was exposed to a daily fine for failing to comply on time with a ruling about detention conditions it administers itself: public money committed for not doing something. And it shows a US$ 46 million building solves the premises but not the staff: without enough technical personnel and officers, the new place carries the old problem with it.

Where it stands

Conviction

The move went ahead. Subrayado reported on 30 July 2026 that around 800 women were transferred in three Interior Ministry buses, over several trips and under escort, from Unit 5 in Colón to the new Punta de Rieles facility, with 846 initial places expandable to 1,015, including 66 pre-release and 30 for trans women; pregnant women and mothers with children stayed in Colón. Minister Carlos Negro described the operation as complex. INR director Ana Juanche had told Búsqueda that the new building is a substantive change in material conditions, but that the staffing shortfall will be reversed gradually and within budget constraints.

The open-data cross-reference

Open this set in the explorer

What the state awarded to the bodies and companies named in this file, according to the official Compras Estatales data. It is a cross-reference for scale, not proof of irregularity: it includes contracts nobody questioned.

How this cross-reference was builtcontracts whose object mentions “rehabilitación” · everything recorded under 39 buying units of the named bodies (not only this case) · between 2023 and 2026

$ 990.429.004 Awarded (cross-ref)

1.401Contracts

517Suppliers

Who was paid

Suppliers ranked by amount awarded in the cross-reference. A contract with several suppliers counts in full against each one: this is a ceiling, not a split.

What it bought

Spending by category, from price times quantity of each awarded item, in the contract currency.

Contracts per year

The detail

30 contracts

The largest contracts in the cross-reference, high to low. Tap one for its record and the link to the official purchase.

Amounts in pesos, normalised. Records with impossible quantities are excluded from the total. The works were carried out through a construction contract whose detail is not always itemised in the procurement feed, and the sources consulted do not identify the building company. What can be traced are purchases of equipment, furniture, food and services tied to the new centre and to Unit 5 in Colón.