Real Life Stones from the Field
Prisoner from Juba Women"s Prison The women in the female prison work very hard each day preparing food for more than 600 male prisoners. The work involves heavy physical labour causing many women to suffer from exhaustion and other related illnesses. One of the female prisoners at Juba Women's prison suffered a miscarriage at three months due to excessive physical labour endured in cooking in the prison. While the prisoner was taken to a clinic for a surgical procedure, she was returned to prison immediately after the procedure where no pain relief medication was available and consequently the prisoner spent many days in severe pain. Women prisoners prepare all the food for both the women's and men's prison. Prisoner from Juba Central Prison A 15 year old boy is imprisoned due to committing a minor theft crime. He has been already in prison for 7 months without a trial and is yet to be given even an indication of when his trial will be heard. He has not seen or heard from his family since being imprisoned as his community is in a far off State outside Juba. In prison there is no access to education, except for basic literacy lessons provided by convicted prisoners to juveniles. He is also not able to work in the prison farms as this is only available to convicted prisoners and until he receives a trial he remains a remand prisoner. In answering questions for the mental health assessment the boy replied:
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We work every day cooking food from early in the morning until the evening. We don't have a rest day so by evening we are very tired and sometimes we get burns from the hot cookers. SSPS Participant
Juba women's prison |
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