The deputy of Management and Expansion of Prisons stated that currently 70 children live in prisons because their mothers are imprisoned.
However, there are different statistics on the issue. Even though these children have not committed any crimes, they are kept in prisons because their mothers are imprisoned, and no one outside is able or qualified to care for them. These children experience prisons and do not experience the concept of a family or daily childhood experiences such as parks, bicycles, toys, parties, mountains, streets, trips, stores and cinemas. They know only long walls, cells and guards and in some cases experience solitary confinement alongside their mothers. They fear strangers and often have learning difficulties. These children are deprived of many of the basic rights that are considered absolute human rights.
Undoubtedly, the living conditions, nutrition and emotional relationships have a large effect on the physical and mental growth of children. These children will suffer from impairments such as mental and physical disorders and their emotional growth will face shortcomings as well. These children suffer from illnesses such as parasites, urinary and infectious diseases and do not have access to basic health care and hygiene.
One child who had lived in prison for eight years looked around confused and flabbergasted after he was transferred to a dormitory from the prison. He did not respond to questions from social workers or teachers and lacked the ability to communicate with his teachers and other students. This child even had difficulties in speaking and pronouncing simple sentences as other children are able to do.
Some of these children also have problems such as mental handicaps, incompatibility, anger, lack of discipline, nocturnal enuresis and fingernail biting.
Sociologist Saeed Madani, who is himself imprisoned, has researched this problem. Using official statistics, he says that during the past eight years, the number of women in prisons has increased from 4 percent of the population to 8 percent. 60 percent of these women are 19 to 29 years of age and many of them are mothers. Madani says that many children in prison have scars on their bodies from child abuse and harassment which reflects the lack of security for children in the women’s wards of prisons. Unfortunately, authorities do not provide information such as the number of children in prisons and the conditions these children live in.
Farshid Yazdani, another researcher who focuses on social issues, believes that at least 450 children live in prisons alongside their mothers and 1,500 children live in dormitories of the welfare organization because their mothers are imprisoned. These dormitories are another kind of prison for these children. According to Yazdani, a more suitable solution needs to be found to take care of the children of imprisoned mothers.
One woman, who has been imprisoned for a long time stated that “Space in prison is limited; some have sexual relationships, female inmates fight, and most of these women have character disorders and suffer mental disorders. Children have to live in this space. These children are imprisoned just as their mothers are. Some of these children are born in prison. This is while keeping them in prison opposes the principle of individual punishment.”
Another group of children who live in poor conditions are children who are not in prisons and are kept by their families but their mothers are in prison because of their ideas. Civil rights activists Narges Mohammadi, Nasrin Sotudeh and Fereshteh Shirazi are among the mothers of these children. Narges, Nasrin and Fereshteh each have two children. These are just some examples and surely, there are other female political prisoners around the country whose children face this problem. These women are imprisoned based on unreasonable charges. Recently, Narges Mohammadi has been suffering from paralysis. Nasrin Sotoudeh has not had the chance of a furlough since she was imprisoned and the financial conditions of Fereshteh Shirazi are very poor.
Zohreh Neekaein was sentenced to seven years of imprisonment for belief in the Baha’i faith. She is imprisoned with her two month old son Rassam. Another Baha’i prisoner Enisa Fanaian, is imprisoned with her 2-year old child and Neda Majidi is being held with one month old son Surena in prison. A prisoner called Taraneh Torabi is pregnant and was sentenced to six years of imprisonment. All these women are imprisoned in Semnan prison.
The story of children in prisons is not a new story.
Monireh Baradaran, who was a political prisoner for eight years, reflected on her time in prison in a three volume book “Haghighate Sadeh” (Simple Truth) which explains the prison conditions in late 80s and early 90s in Iran. “Children were forced to be with their mothers in difficult stages of life in prison. They were with their mothers during interrogations and torture and through the sad and unbearable conditions of living in wards and cells.” She recalls a one year old child named Ali who was held hostage alongside his mother by guards because they had not been able to arrest the child’s father when they had gone to his home. Ms. Baradaran remembers, “Little Ali was forced to live among hundreds of women and girls whom he called “aunt” and witnessed an atmosphere full of stress and violence. He didn’t even have a simple toy to pass the time with. Because of that, Ali was always stressed and looked for excuses to be angry.” In the same report called “Children of Prison,” Ms. Baradaran recalls the summer of 1984 when she lived in a ward where 5 to 10 children lived with their prisoner mothers. Based in the same report, “The oldest of these children was a six year old girl whose name was in the labor list of the ward and had daily responsibilities. She was old enough to understand the limitations of living in prison but was so little that she did not understand why she was forced to live in prison and because of this life in prison was so much tougher and more painful for her. This little girl was always lonely and quiet.”
Ms. Baradaran reports that “The games of children of prison were amazing. They sometimes blindfolded another child and dragged her behind them. They sometimes played the role of the guards and IRGC members shouting ‘Sister, wear your veiling, the plumber brothers are here!”
Ms. Baradaran points out more examples in this book; “Ten month old Siavash was not lucky because he learned to walk much faster than other children in the ninth month after he was born. We played with him, sang songs for him, played horses and he sat on our back. But that was not his whole life. He stood up to breathe fresh air through the little window in the door which passed food into the cell. He yelled: ‘Come!’ the only word he had recently learned. The saddest moments were when he was taken back to the prison from outside and he would refuse to let the guard go!”
Clearly, there is no humane standard kept for women who are housed with their children in prison, or the imprisoned women whose children are kept outside the prison in poor conditions. The issue of these children has not caught the attention of human rights activists or Mr. Ahmed Shaheed, the UN special rapporteur. Attention on these children of prison is more necessary than it has ever been before.
Fariba Davoodi Mohajer
Source : Iran Human Rights Voice