Former female convicts struggle to reintegrate into
society
Source : The Daily Star – Lebanon News 20 May
2017
By : Federica Marsi
BAABDA:
Gently spinning in a twirl while letting a piece of red cloth fall over her
face, the middle-aged woman uttered a raucous scream. “I have spent a long time
here,” she chanted. “My son has seen me, but does not know me.” As the song
continued, the woman confessed to having spent 10 years behind a red bolted
door of Baabda prison, one of Lebanon’s four female penitentiaries.
The
chant voiced by this mother, who wished to remain anonymous, reached the ears
of government representatives and members of civil society Friday, thanks to
Dar al-Amal, an organization supporting women and children on the path toward
social reintegration, both inside and outside prison.
“We
seek, together with our partners, to preserve human rights and make the prison
not only a place of punishment, but of rehabilitation,” Habib Hatem, Dar
al-Amal’s president, said in his opening remarks.
A group of inmates sitting to one side nodded approvingly.
They were later invited to collect a certificate verifying their knowledge of
the art of embroidery. Their creations – the complexity of which attested to
many hours of work – were exhibited and sold at Friday’s event, to
generate modest revenues and give a psychological boost to the inmates, as per
Dar al-Amal’s vision.
These
efforts were followed by social activities, including workshops, professional
trainings and classes. “If they are illiterate, we teach them,” Kara said,
adding that literacy is essential in order to acquaint the women with “their
rights and duties.”
“I
would like to stress that anyone can enter prison. We should not judge them,”
Kara said. Dar al-Amal works in three of the four female facilities in the
country.
According
to Kara, the organization provides legal aid, psychological and medical support
and a number of other services, including the provision of clothes and
detergents.
“NGOs
alone cannot cover all these costs,” Kara said. “But if a woman receives this
kind of support, you can be sure she won’t go back to jail [a second time].”
Dar
al-Amal is supported by Social Affairs Minister Pierre Bou Assi, represented at
Friday’s event by Randa Bou Hamdan.
According
to Bou Hamdan, the ministry is working to improve assistance to prisons and has
started providing needed items, as well as social and medical support.
Hoda
Kara, the organization’s director, said the conditions in Baabda had improved
since 1996 – when Dar al-Amal first started providing social services inside
the prison. “The situation was inhuman,” Kara told The Daily Star. “They [the
prisoners] had no place to breathe fresh air or to see the sun.”
Dar
al-Amal obtained permission from the Interior Ministry to renovate the facility
and build a top floor – a roofless space where inmates can see the sun through
an iron grate.
Hot
meals used to be prepared in Roumieh’s male prison and then brought to Baabda,
but the organization managed to reform this practice too. “We brought one meal
to the Interior Ministry and we asked: is this acceptable?” Kara recalled. The
organization was granted another renovation permit, this time to build a
kitchen where the women could cook for themselves.
“For
sure our work in prison is new and we have to do more,” Bou Hamdan explained to
The Daily Star. “But we do not have enough money to expand our activities in
prison at the moment.”
Head
of the Internal Security Forces Prison Department Col. Ghassan Othman said in
his remarks that the “Interior Ministry, the municipalities and the Directorate
General of the Internal Security Forces will support the development of the
prison system with all available means until its fortunes are revived.”
A
report published by the Lebanese Center for Human Rights in 2015 found that
women are still victims of arbitrary detention as well as other practices that
breach international standards ratified by Lebanon, including physical and
psychological torture.
Women
arrested in Lebanon also face procedural violations and unfair trials, as well
as being at increased risk of sexual abuses and violations by investigators and
prison guards who are mainly men, the report found.
As
part of its services, Dar al-Amal provides psychological assistance and covers
the cost of legal services for those who require this kind of support. Another
inmate who spoke at the event, identifying herself as Joelle, said that the
organization had helped her deal with her paperwork. After spending a year and
a half in Baabda, Joelle is set to be released in two months.
“[When
I go out] I want to be a proper human being and lead a normal life,” Joelle
told The Daily Star. Despite being on her second conviction, she claimed that
her reintegration into society will be different this time because of the
support she received from Dar al-Amal.
“They
helped me a lot,” she said. “The certificate we received today will not be very
useful ... You know how difficult it is for us to find a job out there? But it
is a nice gesture. It encouraged us to do something good.”
A version of this article appeared in the print edition of
The Daily Star on May 20, 2017, on page 3.