A LIBERATING EXPERIENCE !

The November morning air was crisp and dry. It was well past 10 a.m. and the roads of Ouagadougou, the capital of the West African country of Burkina Faso were busy. A recent economic spurt and the relocation of several international operations from neighbouring country Cote d’ Ivoire because of conflict there had meant that Ouaga was much more happening city – it anyway had a reputation of being boisterous, and I remember lying awake all night in my hotel room because of the loud music blaring from the night club just across the road which was busy till the wee hours of the morning.

But this morning of 2011 was going to be a very different experience. We were making our way to the main prison in the country, right in the heart of the city, where we were to launch a ‘WASH in Prisons’ initiative (WASH stands for Water, Sanitation and Hygiene), in collaboration with the Ministry of Justice. As we were driven in to the premises of the prison, we could see the dilapidated prison building, which even from a distance appeared to be in need of some urgent upkeep.

This was a prison meant to lodge 400 prisoners, but currently was bursting at its seams with an occupancy of 1,600 prisoners. There were separate sections for men, women and children and a separate section for prisoners charged with very serious crimes such as murder and rape. Our focus was on the sections meant for those charged with relatively minor offences such as theft. Of the 1,600 prisoners, 25 were women and 39 were boys in the 14-17 age group.

All the male prisoners were out in the open but confined to a compound within which there were bathing, washing and cooking facilities – very basic though. We were thus allowed to take a look at their rooms. Each room measured about 12 feet by 10 feet, and each room housed 6 – 10 men. At the corner of each room was a very basic toilet, probably measuring 3 feet by 3 feet, and most of them had just a curtain in place of a door. Lack of running water and blocked drains meant that the toilets were very dirty and the stench was unbearable even for the few minutes we spent there ! This was pretty much the condition of all the rooms we visited on all the three floors of the building meant for the men. The situation outside was terrible – with most of the sewer drains broken and in a state of complete disrepair, teeming with mosquitoes !

The female ward was much better and quite clean, probably because there were only 25 inmates, or probably because the women chose to keep it clean. Unlike the men who were busy bathing or doing odd errands in the public space, most of the women were in their rooms which were more like dormitories and were busy with cooking, cleaning, making bags or busy with their embroidery or tailoring.

The last section was meant for the children – and this was the most moving bit. These were children, just as old as mine, who probably had indulged in petty crimes either because of poverty or because of being misguided.  Their rooms were like dormitories as well, about a dozen boys in each, with some very basic bathroom and toilet facilities. The rooms were empty. All the boys were being taught by a local teacher in a classroom in the same section. As we walked into the classroom, they all stood up, respectfully and sat down only when the teacher asked them to. They could have been just like any other children of that age and at that time, in a regular school. But here they were, in the confines of a prison !

A discussion with our colleagues and the prison officials revealed that most of them were indeed quite poor and came from families who led difficult lives. They did not have the wherewithal to afford expensive lawyers to bail them out and they would probably be confined to this existence for several years.

What happened later was much more uplifting. The reason why we had launched this initiative was because the prison authorities were keen to spread hygiene awareness among them, so that they would be less prone to illness. They were hoping to raise resources from the government to get better and more toilets. But as part of this initiative, the prisoners were to be trained in latrine construction, so that these basic skills could come in handy on their release when they got back to their communities, and the more skilful and enterprising among them could also become masons.

The launch of the initiative was quite a fun filled event. There was a local comedian, a popular one, fluent in French and English, who was the master of ceremonies, who through his hilarious compering, drove home some serious messages on sanitation and hygiene. There were skits and role plays by the prisoners, including the children. There was a general sense of them wanting to do something to improve their lives and inject that bit of awareness and dignity in their drab lives within the prison. And there was hope – that the messages and skills they learnt here would be put to good use by them while they served their prison sentences and when they went back to their communities !