WUNRN
SRI LANKA - WOMEN'S PRISON
CONDITIONS OVERCROWDED & INHUMANE
By Ranmali Bandarage
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COLOMBO,
Jul 20, 2011 (IPS) - Monthly ‘visiting hours’ at the female ward of Sri Lanka’s
notorious Welikada Prison are as traumatic for the inmates as they are for
their family and friends. A tiny room, measuring 10 feet by seven feet, is
divided in half by a mesh counter. On one side, mothers, fathers, children and relatives
jostle for standing room. On the other the inmates, in white prison clothes,
shout to be heard over the din.
This monthly
ordeal is emblematic of the prison system itself – chaotic, overcrowded and
inhumane.
"We are
treated as far less than human," one of the female prisoners, speaking
under strict condition of anonymity, told IPS.
"About
150 of us sleep in a cell designed for 75 people," she added. "An
open drain infested with rats runs the perimeter of the room. Recently, one of
the inmates was bitten and had to be rushed to the hospital for an anti-rabies
shot."
Over the
past several weeks the plight of prisoners in
Secretary to
the ministry of rehabilitation and prison reforms, A. Dissanayake, told the
leading English language ‘Daily Mirror’, last week, Welikada currently houses
4,500 inmates in a facility intended for 2,000, admitting to 220 percent
overcrowding.
According to
Cristina Albertin, a representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime (UNODC) in the New Delhi-based regional office for South Asia,
"Most
Sri Lankan prisons were built over a 100 years ago by the British, at a time
when the country’s population was about three million," Albertin told IPS.
"Now,
the ministry says that though the "institutional capacity is 11,000
prisoners, the current total prison population is over 30,933," Albertin
said.
"More
than 50 percent of these are remand prisoners and 50 percent are incarcerated
due to non- payment of fines," Albertin said, adding that petty criminals
and sexual offenders are incarcerated with perpetrators of heinous crimes.
"Everyone
receives the same abuse," the female prisoner told IPS, "whether we
have murdered someone or simply failed to pay back a loan."
She
described the female ward of the Welikada prison as "hell" –
including maggots in the food, a complete absence of beds, mats or pillows and
no fans despite the 33 degrees Celsius heat.
"There
are 650 of us in the female ward though it was built for 150 people," she
added, suggesting that, in the women’s ward in particular, actual numbers
outstrip the conservatively estimated occupancy rates of 200 percent.
"We
eat, bathe, sleep, wake up and begin all over again," she told IPS.
"There are no attempts at rehabilitation. Women here just waste
away."
What few of
the inmates know is that the Sri Lankan prison system is actually defined as
"correctional," indicating that, officially, reintegration into
society is a priority.
"Individuals
are sent to prison for a specific purpose – to correct themselves,"
Albertin told IPS. "It is, therefore, important to assess whether the
prevailing prison conditions are conducive to such a task, or whether they are
designed to project the idea that prisoners are a condemned lot, not deserving
of respect or attention."
In fact,
there is a disregard for prisoners’ human rights that extends beyond the walls
of the jails themselves.
Tahini De
Andrado, a senior member of Interact District 3220, the largest local coalition
of Sri Lankan schools under Rotary International, is confronting these biases
at Welikada.
"Though
we weren’t allowed access to the entire prison, we saw enough to know the
situation was bad," De Andrado told IPS.
Currently 75
female inmates are forced to share two bathrooms. Of the ten bathrooms
available for the prisoners, most are in shocking states of disrepair.
"What’s
worse is that women are locked into their cells at 5.30 every evening, and not
let out to use the bathroom until five o’clock the following morning," De
Andrado told IPS.
"Women
sleep with buckets beside them, which they use as toilets during the night.
This is not a complicated issue – I think it’s a simple matter of looking at
sanitation as a basic human right," she added.
Rotary’s
District 3220 is currently embarked on a project to build 10 new bathrooms for
the women, at a cost of 2,000,000 Sri Lankan rupees (18,263 US dollars).
Securing funding
for the project has not been easy.
"Many
large corporations do not consider this a community service project at
all," De Andrado told IPS. "Even managing directors of leading local
companies told us this was a waste of time and money on ‘people who can help
themselves.’"
She added
that a partner organisation that had attempted a similar prison sanitation
project in 2010 had failed to secure any funding from the corporations.
"From
my experience, if you approach complete strangers on the subject of prisoners’
rights and appeal to their human instincts you will find they don’t have
any," De Andrado said.
"Perhaps
some of these women have done wrong – but they don’t deserve to be treated like
cattle once they’re inside," she concluded.
According to
Albertin, the government is slated to review the existing Prison Ordinance of
1867, and bring fresh legislation to parliament this year.
"There
is both scope and need for expanding prison-based intervention to address
issues of overcrowding, services for female prisoners and awareness of the
problem of vulnerable groups like women in prisons," Albertin told IPS.
"The
national policies and rules in prisons need to be in closer conformity with the
U.N. rules for the treatment of prisoners in terms of hygiene, food, access to
services like health and information and complaint mechanisms," she added.
Going by
history, the women of Welikada have little to hope for.