Childhood behind bars: Tales of children born and raised in jails

Oblivious of his environment, two-year-old Mike (not his real name) plays around with a half-eaten tomato in hand.

With the typical innocence of a child, he offers to share the tomato with prison warders doing routine rounds inside the King’ong’o GK Prison in Nyeri.

To him, this is home, but to his mother and the rest of the world, he lives inside a prison.

His mother was only four months pregnant when she was imprisoned for gun-related charges. “I was pregnant when I was sentenced to 14 years in jail. I gave birth while in jail and now my boy is two years old,” Mike’s mother says.

Mike lives inside the facility with nine other children — two of them older than him.

He’s yet to join school, but his two playmates attend a local kindergarten close to the prison.

NEGLECT

Of the 10 children in this correctional facility, the oldest is just turning four, while the youngest is three months old.

There are close to 400 children living inside prison facilities like this one across the country.

At the King’ong’o Prison, mothers with children are serving sentences of up to 15 years for different offences.

Ironically, most of them have been jailed for neglecting their children. “I did not abandon my children because I wanted to. I was unable to provide for them. This is the case for most mothers. They committed these offences because they were just trying to put food on the table,” a mother at the facility said.

Life behind prison walls is the last thing most people would want, but for the 10 little ones, this is the fate that has befallen them.

“Some were born here; others came in with their mothers. This is their home, and we do everything we can to ensure it feels like home to them,” Beth Chege, the deputy officer in charge at the facility, notes.

RIGHTS

Many would argue that these innocent beings are paying for the sins of their mothers and as to whether they are being denied the fundamental right of liberty remains debatable.

For the children in prison, they mostly end up here for lack of alternative custody usually due to discord between the mother and rest of the family.

“In some instances, the children are too young and there is nobody to care for them back at home. The child cannot be separated from their mother at such a tender age, so they have to come with them,” Chege says.

In jail they’re playful and friendly by nature, yet life is difficult for both their parents and the prisons officials who are tasked with ensuring that the children get the best care without being treated as inmates.

For the warders, this means having a different plan for the children that does not compromise their rights and ensures their mothers continue serving their terms like any other convict.

“The children are not prisoners, so we’ve to give them the best life we can and allow them to grow like other children. From a financial point, this is not easy, but we have to do it either way,” the prisons boss says.

WELFARE

To ensure they get the best in life, the prison relies on donations and support from well-wishers. “Well-wishers have been so helpful. In fact, there’s one who ensures every child gets to celebrate their birthday,” Chege says.

Their meals are also prepared separately from the rest of the inmates. Nursing mothers and pregnant inmates also eat the same portions allocated to the children.

Children have five meals a day — breakfast, midmorning snack, lunch, late afternoon snack and supper.

There are wardens who are assigned to take care of the children and ensure they are safe during the day.

They also have a nursery where they spend most of their days playing.

Occasionally, wardens will take the children out for a stroll and to play with other children outside the prison facility.

CHILDREN'S HOMES

Ideally, the mothers and their children are supposed to sleep in a separate cell block, for safety and hygiene, but the facilities at the prison are insufficient.

“At the moment, we do not have a separate block to accommodate them,” Chege says.

Besides, the officials are concerned about the negative influence the inmates could have on the children, hence the need for separate confinement.

As a contingency, inmates who portray unsafe and negative conduct are held in an isolated cell to allow the children grow and play freely.

For the mothers, life is different as they have to spend most of their days away from their children, attending to their allocated duties.

“For us, the schedule is different. We’re either in the farm or at the workshop, so we only get to spend time with our children in the evening,” a mother said.

Things get tricky when children turn four as they have to be taken back to their families.

If there are no relatives to take them back, arrangements are made to transfer them to children’s homes.

Prison rules dictate that children above four years cannot be allowed to live inside the correctional facilities.

TRAUMA

From this point, the children will regularly visit their mothers in the facility until they finish their terms.

However, this separation affects them emotionally and psychologically.

“The biggest problem we have as mothers in prison is not knowing the progress of our children in the homes they are taken to. We are constantly worried about their safety, well-being and whether they’re treated right,” a mother notes.

Although they might not necessarily feel imprisoned, psychologists have argued that life in prison could influence how children grow up.

“The first six years of a child’s life are the most important. They will not necessarily feel imprisoned because this is the home they know. But growing up around adults in such an environment will dictate their behaviour.

"Due to the presence of so many adults and authority from wardens, they could even start acting in a more mature manner as compared to other children. They become what they see and hear,” psychologist Mercy Wachira told Saturday Nation.

MODELLING

Ms Wachira also cautioned that if not monitored, the children could pick up negative habits from some of the inmates.

She said the government should put in place strategies to ensure that the children are allowed to have a normal life like any other child outside the prison.

Chege also suggested changing the law to allow the mothers serve their terms outside the prison system so that they can raise their own children.