As Egypt and the world celebrated International Women's Day recently, Enjy El-Naggar and photographer Sherif Sonbol visited mothers held in Egypt's largest women's prison It was noon when our car approached Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya city, to which many Egyptians, especially poorer Egyptians, flock to celebrate holidays. However, our destination was not the city's vast green parks. Rather, we were on our way to visit the first women's prison established in Egypt, the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya Women's Prison, founded in 1957. As the car drew closer to the prison's huge green gates, the head of a guard popped up, looked at us through a small window, and ordered the gatekeepers to let us through. Our party included high-ranking officials, and this secured us smooth entry to Egypt's biggest and most famous female jail. Many Egyptians have a stereotyped impression about prisons, created by the miserable conditions portrayed in films and opposition newspapers. Reports issued by local human- rights organisations have also highlighted an inadequate level of medical care, ill-treatment, poor conditions and even cases of torture in the country's prisons. However, the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison seemed different to these images. When the gate had opened, a large area covered in yellow sand appeared, where inmates can take exercise. There is a stage that can be used for meetings or celebrations, and when we visited this stage was the site of many tears, warm hugs, jokes and conversation, since this was the day that children were visiting their mothers in prison. This carefully guarded jail is replete with the tragic stories of female criminals. Aya Ahmed, for example, 20 years old, who was being interrogated in a drug-dealing case and was lying on a bed in the hospital affiliated with the prison. Ahmed had had her first baby after spending eight months in prison. Talking with Ahmed in the presence of the prison officials was hardly a warm interview, though when asked about the healthcare services offered in the hospital attached to the prison, Ahmed whispered that "my baby Haneen is 40 days old now and thank God she's in good health, thanks to the healthcare services provided by the prison." Ahmed said that during her pregnancy she had gone through various medical checks. "I'm the first woman to have undergone a cesarean operation in prison," she said. Under presidential decree no. 6/2009 pregnant female inmates should receive standard care from the beginning of pregnancy until the baby reaches the age of 40 days. "The old decree stated that healthcare should be provided starting from the sixth month of pregnancy," said Ismail Barakat, warden of the prison. However, "the minister of the interior also issued a decree adding a nutrition system for sick, pregnant, and feeding mothers and babies." Nevertheless, the Egyptian Foundation for Refugee Rights (EFRR), an NGO, last year reported on the case of Galila, a one-year-old child of Ethiopian nationality, who had died allegedly because of a lack of medical care and medicine in the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison. This incident, the details of which are shrouded in secrecy, reveals some of the problems faced by the prison's hospital. However, when we visited the prison hospital it appeared to be in good condition inside and out. The two-storey building consists of a number of specialised clinics, in addition to a spacious room for patients equipped with a television. On the second storey there is an operating theatre, a pharmacy, an incubation area for newborn children, and two new units for premature babies. Everything seemed perfect at the hospital and the prison in general, but some activists have a different opinion. "What you've seen is only 50 per cent of the truth," said Mohamed Zarie, head of the Arab Penal Reform Organisation (APRO). According to the APRO's 2008-2009 report, the status of female inmates "is really bad and they suffer from a shortage of medical services and equipment." Commenting on the report, Zarie said that, "I can't give an exact number of kids who have died in prison because of their deteriorating health, because we lack accurate statistics." Nevertheless, he said that wards were overcrowded, resulting in the spread of disease among mothers and children. It is thought that there are some 115 children living with their mothers in Egypt's women's prisons, including 55 in the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison. Twenty-nine children stay in nurseries attached to the prison, 24 of them belonging to Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya inmates. "Although the new children's law has many good aspects, the situation of mothers and children in Egypt's prisons is still poor," Zarie said. The new children's law states that any child accompanying his or her mother should receive a LE60 monthly stipend, but according to Zarie this rarely happens. The Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison has 190 inmates distributed among 12 buildings, each building allocated to a different form of crime. Inmates who are also mothers are obliged to live separately from the other prisoners. "Decree 691/1998 stated that pregnant and mother inmates should stay in a different building that has proper forms of care," said Brigadier Amr Gehad, director of the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison. Away from the official side of the story, the mothers in prison have problems of their own. Nevertheless, those who have their children with them are simply glad to have their children in their care, making their stay away from their families more bearable. However, posters of Winnie the Pooh and Mickey Mouse covering the white walls of the mother's room, as well as the TV set hung on the wall, are not enough to distract Maqboula Hussein from her agony. Carrying her nine-month-old son Ahmed in her arms while sitting on her lower bed of the bunk bed, Hussein shared her story. "I'm here for three years because I failed to repay a sum of money," Hussein said. "I used to sell various durable goods, and I was required to repay LE4,000 to my supplier but I failed to do so," she said. "I couldn't repay it because my elder son was sick and I'd spent all my money on buying medicine and paying for doctor's visits," she added. Despite the fact that Hussein's husband hasn't visited her since she was put in jail and has even barred her two sons from visiting her, Hussein maintained her smile and even made jokes when she could. Hussein agreed with Ahmed in saying that she had received proper healthcare in prison. "Whenever I asked for milk, I got it, and doctors are available all the time," she said. "Babies' milk and supplements are provided in the prison's pharmacy at all times," added Mustafa Abul-Nas, head of the prison hospital. However, according to Zarie, although international and local standards require that there should be special healthcare for female inmates, especially pregnant women, mothers, and breast-feeding inmates, the reality is that there are a number of violations to these standards, including the poor structure of the prison buildings, the lack of proper hygiene and the poor quality of the food. Major-General Magdi Abdel-Salam, former head of the Tura Prison, commented that although the overall situation of Egypt's prisons was still not always good, progress had been made since the 1990s in the prison sector as a whole. "The prison hospital has everything that inmates need. Besides, if something is not available the administration of the prison can get it from outside," Abdel-Salam said. Asked about cases like Galila's, Abdel-Salam said that such incidents were rare and that this case might not be accurate. "The Prison Sector has a permanent ward in Al-Qasr Al-Aini Hospital for prisoners," he said. "The prison also has a guarded ambulance that can exit with the sick mother or child," Abdel-Salam told Al-Ahram Weekly. It is also the case that due to regulations introduced recently regarding the rights of the children of inmates, all children are now vaccinated against diseases like tuberculosis, measles, mumps and tetanus in coordination with the Ministry of Health. Major-General Atef Sherif, head of the Prisons Sector, also stressed that the sector had achieved many improvements in 2009, especially since the passage of the new children's law. "According to the old decree, children accompanying their mothers in prison could only stay with their mothers for two years. This has now been extended to four years," Sherif said. As a result of the new decree, a cheerful and colourful kindergarten has also been established, so that inmates can spend time with their kids there. "The child will stay with his or her mother in her cell for two years, and then he or she will be moved to the kindergarten of the prison for the next two years," Sherif added. Officials at the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison acknowledge the achievements of organisations concerned with the conditions of children inside prisons, such as the Society for Sponsoring the Children of Female Inmates, founded in 1990 and headed by Nawal Mustafa, a journalist at the newspaper Akhbar Al-Yom. Members of the association visit the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison periodically to provide kids with clothes and gifts. The prison is also now equipped with a garden for children, where they can play football and ride swings with their mothers. "Before children leave the prison, social workers appointed by the prison make calls on their fathers or relatives in order to make sure that the children will be in a safe place outside prison," said the director of public relations at the Prisons Sector, Hatem Abu Zeid. Furthermore, a team of social workers also follows up the educational achievements and economic conditions the children live in. Our recent tour of the Al-Qanater Al-Khairiya prison revealed that it had a library with 4,600 books and a TV set. A workshop had been set up so that many inmates could work on knitting, embroidery and making handmade craft items. At the workshop there was also an eye-catching, well-dressed woman wearing an embroidered and expensive abaya. "She's Mama Fatma, as we call her," said Amr Gehad, director of the prison. Insolvency led Fatma Ahmed into jail 12 years ago, but this doesn't prevent her from putting on a neat white scarf covering part of her hair and wearing expensive perfume. Gehad added that the Ministry of Interior had developed a number of projects in addition to handicrafts, such as a clothes' factory, which includes about 350 inmates working on 60 machines and taking part in weaving workshops. Ahmed is considered one of the main contributors to these projects because she taught a large number of inmates all kinds of handicrafts. "The prison administration buys us all the materials we need from outside," said Ahmed, who will be released in a few months time. Ahmed's target is to help people see the bright side of prison, teaching her colleagues skills that will help them earn a living after leaving prison. "We've inmates here who earn nearly LE1,000 a month from this kind of work," she said. While many inmates are learning new talents to help them make a living, others are learning how to forget the reasons that got them into prison in the first place. One such inmate, who killed her husband, was going to be set free after almost 15 years behind bars. She was a mother who had had one child at the time of the murder, but she had not been able to experience her motherhood. Instead, she had been abandoned by her family, and, unlike other mothers in prison, she had not had the chance to have her child with her in prison since he was older than the required age. However, a charitable organisation related to the prison has been covering the expenses of her son. Though this inmate was not unhappy with her life in prison, she refused to talk about her case, saying, "I try to forget about it each day, so don't make me relive it again. I have paid my dues."
