By MARGARET MANGANI –
MARY Kabuswe (not real name) is an ex-convict.
After having spent some few years at one of the State prisons in the country where she was incarcerated on a charge of unlawful wounding, she discovered some strange characteristics in her child.
Mary found herself in trouble after discovering that her husband was cheating on her. In the process, she lost her temper and caused grievous bodily harm on her husband.
This happened while she was interrogating the spouse over the matter.
But after she was provoked and ended up committing the offence of unlawful wounding.
When she was arraigned to court and subsequently prosecuted.
She was remorseful for her conduct, but nevertheless, she had to go in as required by law to serve the sentence as she was found guilty.
Unfortunately for Mary, she went in prison with her three months old son who was still breast-feeding at the time. By the time she had served her sentence, the boy was almost three years old.
What baffled Mary was that as her son was growing up, he became violent, temperamental and vulgar towards his schoolmates and friends to a point where she was being summoned almost daily at his school.
She also observed that her son was stunted in comparison to his peers.
At some point, he even developed tuberculosis (TB).
Mary was left to wonder how the boy had developed such a character when all along, the family knew peace and tranquil prior to her going to prison where she was a victim of circumstances due to a crime of passion through gender based violence (GBV).
At times the boy would be withdrawn from the rest of his friends, a thing that worried the Mary so much so that she had to seek the help of a child psychologist.
However, the Prisons Care and Counselling Association (PRISCCA) says circumstantial children below the age of seven should not be separated from their mothers serving prison sentences.
In a recent interview, PRISCCA Executive Director Godfrey Malembeka said the association was against the idea of separating circumstantial children under the age of seven from their incarcerated mothers. He warned that separating such children from their parents could negatively affect the children’s up-bringing.
Mr Malembeka further said relatives of incarcerated mothers who have circumstantial children should not be forced to look after such children as they would not be looked after according to expected standards.
“Our thinking is that there are two schools of thought: one school of thought is that people are saying the children must be separated from their mothers, in other words, getting the children so that they are looked after by someone outside and leave the mothers inside.
“For us, that is not the route we want to go. What we believe in scientifically is that a child under seven years should be with the mother because of the bonding process and also for the purpose of laying the foundation for that child,” he said.
Mr Malembeka, a former prisoner, said there was also need for the country to do away with the false belief that bad luck would hit families looking after circumstantial children on behalf of the incarcerated mothers.
He said while the country was still trying to get rid of such a myth, there was need for Government through the Ministry of Finance to increase allocation to the Zambia Correctional Service for it to fully cater for circumstantial children.
Mr Malembeka said PRISCCA, with support from local partners and the European Union (EU), had every month taken upon itself to assist circumstantial children at various prisons with assorted necessities, but that Government also needed to come on board to render help.
“In our current funding from European Union, we have 3,500 per site multiplied by seven sites; that is, seven sites are benefitting. So we have 3,500 per site per month just to provide milk and special needs that the Government cannot provide.
“That is what we are doing, but that is a drop in the ocean. What is required is the Government to provide for these requirements including early childhood education where these major prisons are having expectant mothers and those with children,” he said.
Besides providing circumstantial children with foodstuffs, PRISCCA has completed the construction of a nursery school at Mwembeshi Prison.
The prison is planning to extend the gesture, including erecting rooms for breast-feeding, entertainment and early childhood classes to other prisons.
Maintaining a healthy environment is central to increasing quality of life and years of healthy living.
But this has not been the case for children who are forced to be in detention centres with their mothers, notwithstanding the fact that they should bond with their mothers as they are growing up.
But what is of concern is that the imprisonment of a mother has an independent effect on the child’s behaviour in terms of academic performance, most likely the child’s psychological or mental status thereafter.
This is so because water and sanitation, as well as nutrition in most prisons, are compromised forcing the child to experience that sort of environment as well.
Since time in immemorial there has been silence in relation to the needs or the plight of circumstantial children.
Generally, sanitation and hygiene conditions are very poor.
What is obtaining now is nothing to write home about. In some cases sanitary conditions, dietary provisions are not even children or disability friendly so to speak.
A prison is one place where there is congestion.
Thus disease infestation such as tuberculosis, cholera, typhoid, scabies, as well as other communicable conditions like dysentery thrive.
Besides that, there is no recreation amenities provided for the circumstantial children. For argument’s sake, is this the place where some people feel a child should be subjected to because they feel a child below the age of seven should be left to bond with its mother?
The Human Rights Commission in its recent report said local prisons did not have any special provisions, such as separate accommodation, for mothers and children or additional nutritional diet to cater for their needs despite Zambian laws recognising the existence of circumstantial children and allowing them to live with their mothers.
Meanwhile, Mr Malembeka cautioned the public against stigmatising former prisoners because Zambia is a Christian nation which needed to embrace forgiveness, reconciliation and unity.
He further welcomed the name change from Zambia Prisons Service to Zambia Correctional Service in the amended Constitution.
He said the former name was discriminatory. He challenged traditional
leaders and Members of Parliament, among others, to supplement Government’s efforts in denouncing stigmatisation against ex-prisoners.
In this regard, some civil society organisations based on the Copperbelt recently met and formed the Consortium for Prison’s Act Review.
The aim of the organisation is to push for the review of the Prisons Act and lobby for its inclusion in the current Constitution.
This follows a decision made by participants who recently held a workshop Zanji Lodge in Ndola to look at the Prisons Act.
The consortium felt that some parts of the Act should be reviewed to accommodate the interests of female in-mates and their circumstantial children.
The consortium is comprised of Age Justice International, Afri-governance, A Restoration of Orphans and Street Children and Nkhosa Transformation Development Trust.
The consortium has since come up with a position paper to push for the change in the Prison’s Act to accommodate the issues pertaining to the plight of uplifting the plight of circumstantial children so that they can grow up into responsible citizens and not end up being wayward.
In 2014, Government said it was in the process of reviewing the Prisons Act to ensure it meets international standards. The aim of the consortium, therefore, is to lobby Government to look into this issue as a matter of urgency.
Minister of Justice Ngosa Simbyakula, who was then serving as Home Affairs Minister, said the review would call for implementation of some provisions such as Section 56 which states that a mother should go to prison with a child on public expenses.
Dr Simbyakula was responding to calls by civil society organisations who appealed to Government to amend Section 56 of the Prisons Act which provides that a child of a female prisoner should go in jail with the mother. But it leaves no room for the child to be provided with food rations.
The minister said the children were catered for in the current law which was not implemented due to budgetary constraints.
“The provision of the Act already stipulates that a mother can go in prison with the child on public expense, meaning all necessities of the child should be provided for by the prisons authority,” he said.
The consortium of non-governmental organisations felt that the needs of the female prisoners together with their circumstantial children were not adequately catered for hence the organisations are now lobbying the Government that such clauses should be included in the Act.
Southern African Development Community (SADC) protocol on gender and development, to which Zambia is a signatory, set a target of ensuring the provision of hygiene, sanitary facilities and nutritional needs of women in prison by 2015.
It is important that those who are tasked with the responsibility to promote and protect the children’s rights work together for a better Zambia.
Policy makers should explore the subject matter by interrogating their staff as well as the heads of agencies with jurisdiction over law enforcement, child welfare and education in ensuring the wellbeing of children who are being kept by mothers in prisons.
Once the convicted mothers have been released from prison together with their circumstantial children, it is these same children whom the nation would have to look up as future leaders.