Mukobeko Maximum Security Prison was built 1961, and then it was made for 400 prisoners. Today this prison will accommodate up to nearly 1500 prisoners, but still just made for 400. So the cells is really overcrowded, all of them. I could not find out how many women and children it was accommodated in the female section. But it is a lot. And a lot of these women’s have children together in the cells. Some of the females is under age of 18 and have children in prison too.
This is a story about a girl who gets to Mukobeko when she was 13 years old, for stealing clothes in Kabwe center. The time I was talking to her she didn’t know exactly how long time she have been there, but she thought it could have been 1.5 year. She hasn’t seen any lawyer or likely and still waiting for someone to represent her. For a girl in that age is very dangerous in the prison and for all females at all. She was raped by a guard that probably transmitted HIV to her, and now had a baby for her. The baby was born in the prison and also has to stay with her. The condition for them is very bad. Sometimes they don’t get clean water for several days and if they want to have food enough to eat, they can if she has sex with the guard. Normally it should be female guards for the female section, but time to time the male guards coming to pleasure them self. And when they do they always chose the youngest girls and no one can do anything than just follow them. But even the female guards sometimes rape them and other prisoners. If her son has HIV she doesn’t know and probably they never will know.
The time I visited the prison was January 2008 and if she still are there I don’t know. I tried to visit her 2 weeks after that but then they said there was no one with that name there. Probably I caused a very dangerous situation for her when she was talking to me, some guards was always near during the visit. I was not allowed to take any pictures and I was not allowed to do any notes. She tried to give some paper that she had written something on but the guards took it immediately. She was absolutely not the only minor girl in there, and how many children it is born and held there together with their mothers will probably never get out in public. These children are really born doomed and will never feel the freedom in the same way other children do. And what have they done. Absolutely nothing.
Everyday some minor girls and boys will be raped in Zambian prisons. Everyday minor children get the risk to be transmitted by TB, depending on that they have to stay in same cell together with TB infected prisoners. Cells that are made for up to 40 inmates sometime accommodate 140 – 150 inmates. The health problem is growing worthy for every year. A lot of the inmates have not even been into trial yet, even after years behind bars. And probably not all get into trial before they die.
This is not a manuscript for a bad drama movie or a short story for editorial. This is the real life for a lot of children and adults in Zambia. It is easy for anyone to visit some prisons in Zambia. They even have days for tourists, but then they don’t see the prisoners like I did. I get this contact with that girl with help from Christina Care Center in Kabwe, where I met a man who knows this girl because he was working to help children in prison.
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