Amnesty International on Tuesday accused Madagascar of an “unjustified, excessive, prolonged and otherwise abusive use of pre-trial detention.”

The law in Madagascar allows pre-trial detentions to last as long as 5.5 years for adults and 2.75 years for children. In the second quarter of 2017, 45 percent of minors that were released from pre-trial detention were released after their detention limit expired and before any trial took place. Since 2010, more than half of the detainees in Madagascar were pre-trial detainees.

According to Amnesty, poor individuals were found to be more likely to see long pre-trial detentions. Many who are in pre-trial detention were arrested for petty crimes. Many pre-trial detainees believe they had been arrested arbitrarily and without evidence. The president of the Antanarivo Court has said that roughly have of pre-trial detainees get their case dismissed due to lack of evidence.

Pre-trial detainees reportedly face poor health and sanitation conditions. Many prisons are severely overcrowded, with 10 prisons being between 354 percent and 1472 percent of their rated capacity. For 82 prisons, there were a total of 64 nurses between them. In 2017, of 129 detainees who died in Madagascar’s prisons, 52 of them were pre-trial detainees.

Amnesty has called upon Madagascar to reduce pre-trial detention to only cases in which there are “specific, concrete and compelling reasons to do so in the interest of justice or safety.” They also ask the government to ensure that all detainees appear before a judge within 48 hours and ensure all detainees have a lawyer present at all stages of proceedings. The  Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment is also called upon to visit Madagascar and call upon them in increase the conditions of the prison system.

Many countries have faced criticism for human rights conditions of their prisons. In November 2013 a UN Special Rapporteur called the prison system in Ghana cruel and inhumane. In May 2016 Zimbabwe had to release 2,000 prisoners due to overcrowding and lack of food. In January 2017, the UK Ministry of Justice announced a record number of suicides and deaths in prisons in England and Wales, which many attributed to overcrowding.