Forgotten children in jail

Prisons in the country wear an ugly and brutal face: congestion, malnutrition, unsanitary conditions and high disease burden.

Yet every year, scores of children walk into these overcrowded prisons on the back of their jailed or remanded mothers. Jail becomes their new home.

Also, there are children who have never known a home other than a packed, foul-smelling cell in which they were born to their imprisoned mothers.

Regrettably, it is not unusual to see children playing in prisons oblivious of the harsh conditions. To them, everything is okay.

Rights of these children of convicted mothers remain largely unacknowledged both within the criminal justice system and in our society.

Theirs has now become a forgotten story.

Recently, the media reported that 12 innocent babies are facing the hardships that come with imprisonment alongside their mothers in the country’s prisons.

Though not convicted by any court of law, these children have to follow unkind prison routines primarily designed to punish and rehabilitate adult offenders.

For example, the doors of the cells open at 6am followed by a routine register check where in-mates are required to squat in a straight-line.

This is the only time the innocent children too are counted before they are left to play within the prison premises while their friends go to school. But their rights do not count.

For starters, Malawi Prison Act provides that a female prisoner with a child aged below four may be allowed to live in prison alongside their children if there are no family members willing to take care of the child. She is supposed to be supplied with clothing and other necessities at the public expense.

However, little is known about the conditions under which these children live in a prison.

The Act further obliges prison authorities to ensure that children living with jailed mothers are provided with basic services, including clothes and blankets.  However, the young victims of circumstances are subjected to harsh conditions, including sleeping on the floor, going without diversified diets, not having clothing and being exposed to indecent assault.

This is gross contravention on the rights of the children.  Talk about access to early childhood development (ECD) education,  it is painful that almost all our prisons stations do not provided ECD education.

It is no secret that sanitation and hygiene conditions in our prisons are poor and life-threatening—not child-friendly.

Diseases in these unsanitary and overcrowded prisons are rampant. Infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, scabies and dysentery thrive.

In addition, there are no recreation facilities provided for these children.

Is this the place authorities feel a child below four should be subjected to so as to bond with the mother?

Do courts weigh the rights of potentially affected children against the seriousness of the parent’s offence?

To me, this is a matter of significance for the welfare of children and for our criminal system of justice.

When all is said and done, the inhumane state of prisons demands immediate attention to improve the well-being of children who live with their mothers in jail.

Government has the obligation to offer early childhood care, pre-school education and recreation facilities to children of imprisoned mothers.

While there are no simple solutions, the complexities associated with balancing the rights of the innocent children in confinement and their mothers’ offences cannot be an excuse for failing to protect the rights of these children.

It is important that those with the responsibility to promote and protect children’s rights work together for better Malawi, a country where rights of children are respected whether their mothers are guilty or innocent. n