Casestudy: Godfrey Malembeka

Women are in effect serving three sentences

Prisons Care and Counselling Association is a Prison Cell NGO formed in 2000 by ex-prisoners which deals with male and female remandees and convicts as well as illegal immigrants to assist in the rehabilitation of both prisons and prisoners. It focuses on the improvement of the physical conditions in prisons – improving cells, building schools etc. – and on education - running classes on a broad range of topics including HIV and AIDS, human rights, drugs, mental health etc. Most of the prisoners, especially the female prisoners are illiterate and this makes them vulnerable. Most of the current female prisoners are divorced because once a male partner realises the woman is going into prison, he will divorce her – ‘Men in Zambia are not ready to wait for their wives, but the wives wait for the husbands. We are trying to balance that scale.'

We look at the plight of women with their children in prisons - they are known as circumstantial children – born and brought up in prisons. We are building nursery schools and we want children to go to school with prison officers' children and other inmates children because they are free but inside. Zambian society is not ready to look after a prisoner's child.

We approach the issue of HIV and AIDS from, for example, the drug abuse angle. When you look at modes of transmission, you cannot separate it from drug abuse. We focus on drug abuse sensitisation; we want inmates to know the long and short term effects of drug abuse. We know that drugs give them courage to commit sodomy and many of the other things they are involved in. The hottest or quickest mode of transmission is actually sodomy and homosexual activity in the prisons because condoms are not allowed!

We also focus on human rights, natural rights, which prisoners have even if they are incarcerated. They have rights to eat three times a day, to adequate shelter, to decent clothing, health treatment – these are not privileges. The Zambian prison system is designed to accommodate 5,500 prisoners but actually has about 16,000 plus at the moment, so serious congestion is a big problem. So when we talk about blood and air-borne diseases such as TB, HIV and AIDS, the prison environment is very conducive to these diseases.

We want the justice system to respond by resorting to non-custodial sentencing, there are a lot of people in prison today for petty offences and these people should be outside, they should be given fines, suspended sentences, they should be given community based sentences. We are also looking at empowering women in prison, we want to help them so that by the time they are leaving prison they have some capital and the possibility of a new life, perhaps with their partner.

The main contributing factor to the vulnerability of our women is the Prisons Act itself which empowers the officer in charge to select who should be treated at the hospital on any particular day (even if a doctor has already recommended treatment). The officers have the final say on who may be allowed to go for treatment – this is creating a lot of problems for women as these officers or wardens in charge are not medical officers. It should be a basic right for women that they are attended to by a doctor.

We have 86 prisons countrywide but only 15 prison based clinics. 33 of these 86 prisons are open air prisons, these are a little bit better because prisoners are allowed to walk, to go all over, there is less security – but the 53 penal prisons must have clinics.

The vulnerability of our mothers, our women, is higher than that of our male convicts; if a person who is not expectant is finding it difficult to access treatment, what about the expectant mothers, who have to deliver in prison? The current situation does not cover the babies born adequately, in terms of basic provision. So you will find that expectant mothers are incarcerated twice - they are incarcerated mentally because they are thinking of the baby, and their actual incarceration. So looking at mental health, you will find that the level of disturbance among female prisoners is higher than among men. Another problem under the Prisons Act is that wardens can transfer prisoners and often when they are transferred their files are not transferred with them, causing medical and other difficulties. There are considerable problems associated with medical records which are constantly lost impacting directly on treatment for HIV and AIDS.

Women are in effect serving three sentences:

• as their husbands have divorced them
• because they are worried about their babies because they cannot feed them properly or care for them properly
• then the years that they are actually serving.

Obtaining CD4 counts is also problematic as the system does not have CD4 count machines; people can be tested, but if the viral load is not known, they cannot be put on drugs unless they are escorted to a bigger hospital. We need to attend to our women quicker and more effectively. They are in a worse condition that men, especially because they don't have people who will visit them to support them. The men in the prisons always have their wives, mothers, sisters – there is always a queue.

There is also an issue of food supplements. We are given strong drugs but not fed three times a day and the food is not balanced. People are given 350 grams of food a day and it is always the same food. 350 grams of rice, or of maize meal. There is nothing else: no oil, no ground nuts. We work with prisoners to develop their own gardens so vegetables can be available.

The law that governs prisons was made so long ago it is actually outdated; it does not take account of international law or standards. If you examine the law you will see that women are not even allowed to go into prison with their underwear! How are women supposed to survive like this?

And then there is the issue of drugs. One of the main reasons why women are in prison is because they are used as drug mules; they are asked by wealthy men to transport drugs from one country to another, or even within the country. Some of them are in because they were selling marijuana, some for selling game meat, some are in because they were fighting; some are in for armed robbery. We have people remanded in prisons sometimes for 5, 6, 7 years, while they are waiting for their case to be heard; their records are gone, the arresting officers don't turn up etc. These things can drive you to drugs.

We have opened up ‘site clubs' in prisons - for example Lusaka Central Prison has a PRISCCA Site Club with a full committee of officers, trustees, teachers, lawyers (some of whom have been incarcerated) – they are designing lessons on issues such as HIV at the level of the prisoners and in languages they can understand. Some prisoners are trained as Peer Educators, so that when they are in the cells at night time, they can teach and talk about the issues.

Stigma is still a problem, and there is stigma within the stigmatised community. Prisoners are stigmatised by the outside community and then, those who are on ARVs in prison are also stigmatised.

Women are in effect serving three sentences:

• as their husbands have divorced them
• because they are worried about their babies because they cannot feed them properly or care for them properly
• then the years that they are actually serving.

It is always the women who support these women in the prisons, I go on the radio to talk about this and the response from men is ‘why do you support these women, they are harlots! Why should you make the environment in prisons better for these women'. But the response from women is different ‘Any person can land in prison; continue the work you are doing. Where can I find you because I have these shoes.'

The rural areas are worse for the women. In the rural prisons, there are no lawyers, they follow the judges. Judges need to be sent to the provinces, we advocated for that and luckily the government listened. They are sending judges to the provinces next year, and the lawyers will follow. In rural areas, some women have to deliver in prisons with no water, no electricity. We have to supply them and their babies with clothes.

I suffered heavily in the congested prisons. Most of the things that go on in prisons are not seen or heard of outside. It was very bad, especially when there was cholera. I saw my friends wrapping themselves in newspaper and plastics to try and stop the infection...you are supposed to be fed three times a day in prison. For four years, I was fed only once a day; sometimes you just feed on bean soup... you would not believe how bad it was. But still I survived. I was bitter with the justice system after this.