When I started my jail sentence in Bogotá, Colombia, it was 2008 and I was 31 with a four-year-old daughter. I was imprisoned for nine years and three months. I don’t tell people the reason I went to prison. Not for me, but for all the free women who face so many problems because of the time they spent in jail. My crime doesn’t make me the person I am.
Most women in Colombia commit crime out of a need to provide for their families. They are judged and punished without society or the justice system taking the circumstances surrounding the crime into account.
When women go to jail for the first time, most don’t know anything about prison. They have in their heads what they’ve seen in films; women have no idea what will happen to them and go into prison very scared. No one explains anything. You’re sent to the cell and it’s the other women who tell you how things work.
Q&AGuide – the rise in female prisoners around the world
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More than 740,000 women and girls are in prison around the world. The number has grown by almost 60% since 2000, nearly three times the increase in the male prison population of about 22%. The global female prison population rose by more than 100,000 between 2010 and 2020.
Women – who represent between 2% and 9% of national prison populations – are often imprisoned as a result of domestic violence, discriminatory laws or crimes committed because of poverty. Women are also disproportionately affected by punitive drug policies.
In 2010, the Bangkok Rules were adopted by the UN to reduce the imprisonment of women by promoting noncustodial alternatives and addressing the causes of their offending. Yet over the past decade, in every region except Europe, numbers have risen.
In Colombia, most women in prison have not committed violent crimes and are carrying out sentences for their first offence, according to research by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
The number of women in prison in the country increased from 1,500 in 1991 to 7,944 in June 2018 – a 429% increase, compared with 300% for men over the same period. More than half (53.4%) of women said they had committed a crime for reasons related to economic hardship.
Locking women up has an impact on families. At the time of their imprisonment, 85% of the Colombian women were mothers and 54% lived with children under 18, the ICRC found. The trauma of the separation and the social and economic pressures associated with it can lead them to crime, thereby continuing the cycle of offending.
The food is terrible. I would get meat that looked as if it was decomposing; it smelled and looked bad. Food was often burned and juices also smelled bad. Soups were basically water. Everyone had to eat it – it was that or nothing.
The prison in Bogotá is one of the biggest in Colombia, housing 1,859 women. There is one doctor on duty during the day and another at night. Women can’t get appointments. There are lots of sick people and a lack of specialist care.
There is no one to treat gynaecological ailments. There is no one to test for cancer, or to carry out breast exams. There are so many flaws in the system in terms of reproductive and sexual health. I suffered uterine problems and used to get strong cramps and heavy bleeding. I was given ibuprofen for the pain and had to make do.
When I left prison and went to see a gynaecologist I was scolded for not seeking medical attention earlier. I had to have a hysterectomy because I had uterine fibroids that had gone untreated.
I was lucky I had work in prison and could afford sanitary towels. Other women only got 10 sanitary towels every three months. That’s not enough for one menstrual cycle. Women would cut off a bit of their mattress to use, or would make tampons with wool or thread, which can cause infections.
Many prisoners experience mental health difficulties due to being apart from their families. It is not like they stop being a mother, or a daughter, when they get to prison. It causes anxiety and depression to have these roles but be powerless to fulfil them. There are many suicide attempts and self-harm is widespread because of this.
My daughter was involved in a traffic accident and had to go to hospital. I was sent photos of her bleeding face and could do absolutely nothing but cry.
When I got out, my daughter was a teenager. In as much as I went through difficult times being denied my liberty and rights, she suffered by not having a mother.
I was scared to leave prison because I didn’t know what I would do for money. Fortunately, I was given a job by a human rights organisation because of the experience I had as an incarcerated woman and as a representative on the prison’s committee for human rights.
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Most are not so lucky. Employers usually carry out checks on people applying for jobs. If they find a criminal record, they won’t employ her.
Banks view women with criminal records as a risk and won’t let them open accounts. Doors close everywhere.
Women continue to be denied access to health services outside of prison. We have a subsidised system in Colombia, but you have to be means-tested to access it.
When women leave prison, they often go to stay with a relative. So when they are interviewed by the health service, they’re staying in a place with a bed and furniture and are seen as being above the threshold for help.
For female migrants who don’t have the right documents, the situation is even worse.
Women who manage to get informal work, at neighbourhood restaurants for example, are often abused. We have heard of cases where women have been groped and raped.
Bosses know the women would struggle to find work elsewhere. The victims do not report their employers because they need the work.
I came to know about all these issues in 2018 when I started holding meetings for former prisoners. This was the genesis of Mujeres Libres. Now we are a group of nine women, with 600 affiliated with us.
Mujeres Libres has been campaigning about menstruation in prison. In June 2022, law 2261, which “guarantees the free, opportune and sufficient delivery of articles of menstrual hygiene for women detained in prisons” was passed. Article two states women are entitled to 10 sanitary towels every month.
In 2019, the Colombian congress, along with civil society organisations including Mujeres Libres, started working on alternative sentencing for women that would take into account their needs and seek to reduce the impact of imprisonment on dependants. On International Women’s Day, a new law was approved by the president, so women who have been sentenced for minor crimes are able to substitute a prison sentence for unpaid community service.
Women who have been in prison can make an impact, if we’re allowed. People who make decisions about us know nothing about being in prison. They make laws without listening. There are people who think we are not capable, but what we lived through in prison makes us experts by experience.
As told to Sarah Johnson. Claudia Cardona is director of Mujeres Libres, an organisation dedicated to improving the lives of female prisoners