|
 |
PRISON CHILDREN
ANUPAZ visited prison children in Montevideo, Uruguay, and delivered clothes, books, soft toys, toys and teaching materials, as well as organising a painting workshop for the children and their mothers. (October 2008)
|
.. |
|
In Uruguay, as in many other countries, female prisoners have the right to live in prison with their children. Cabildo is the women’s jail in the Uruguayan capital. Although it has a capacity of 100 people, 212 women live there, 20 of them together with their children under 8. |
|
.. |
|
The prisoners are held in different areas with varying security conditions, and in each of these areas there is a special room for women with children. The establishment as a whole includes three of these rooms, housing a total of 20 women and 18 children.
These children share all the features of prison life with their mothers. The children are cut off from their family and social environments, they lack suitable role models, and they do not receive the input they need to help them develop appropriately. |
In Cabildo there is a special programme for these children, but the same cannot be said for prisons elsewhere in the country. Thanks to this programme, set up two years ago, the youngest children attend day-care from the age of 9 months, and those of school age go to the local school every day. This means that they come into contact with children who have no connection with the prison environment, which helps them develop. On top of this, twice-weekly workshops are held, where the children do psychomotor activities with two specialists.
Not all mothers choose to have their children live with them in prison, which gives rise to another series of serious problems, as these children at best go to live with their biological father or grandparents (very often in a very precarious situation); others have to go to establishments run by INAU (the national institute for children and adolescents in Uruguay).
|
|
|
|
|
| |
what we do
