Stories from Inside

Furthermore, when the prisoners are eventually set free they forever have the label of ‘ex-convict’ hanging over their head, which limits employment and causes social exclusion. These two aspects can therefore lead to their re-entry into the world of crime as they are unable to get a job and the only people that will accept them as a friend are other criminals.

Harry Anscombe

The widely publicized images of the suspected Alkaida terrorists chained and shackled at Guantanamo bay in Cuba has shown the world what being ‘inside’ can really be like. This openness to the conditions of a high security jail was the American government’s way of providing a deterrent to those people with further terrorist activities in mind. Whether it worked is a highly controversial matter and some intellectuals believe that seeing these people in such miserable circumstances could have simply angered other terrorists and ultimately encouraged them. However, being denied your freedom of movement and speech, as the pictures showed is one thing but risk of being poisoned or beaten? These are two of the many shocking realities not only prevalent in prisons worldwide but in the lock ups of Nepal. Of course, it must be understood that prisoners are banged up for a reason. Whether for murder or theft they have broken the law and must go through the judicial system. Nonetheless, it is the hidden truth that within this system many further atrocities occur. These are the prisoner’s stories, make of them what you will.

A detainee in one Kathmandu’s central jails told of the different kinds of people that are found inside. "There are men who have administration offences in the same cell with men who have raped and butchered women. This means that if you don’t pay your taxes then you can end up socializing with murderers." This is the sort of arrangement that encourages what criminologists call the ‘labeling theory’. This is where a person gets put inside for one thing and ultimately comes out with the knowledge of other crimes having lived with other more serious criminals. Furthermore, when the prisoner is eventually set free they forever have the label of ‘ex-convict’ hanging over their head, which limits employment and causes social exclusion. These two aspects can therefore ultimately lead to a re-entry into crime as they are unable to get a job and the only people that will accept them as a friend are other criminals.

The prisoner continued to tell of experiences of beatings and theft. "If you don’t pay your bill at the prison shop at the end of the month then you will have a black bag stuffed over your head, be taken to a dark room and beaten with poles." Overcrowding is difficult to define in the context of prison as privacy is one thing that is expected to be taken away. However, reaching these levels of treatment for the issue of unpaid credit is simply inhumane. The beating is supposed to be a deterrent to others who are unable to pay for supplies but the prisoner went on to say that "many prisoners have no money but need supplies from the shop to survive so have to take credit."

Another detainee spoke of how if you have money and dislike someone then it is easy to have them killed by another who is less well off. "Poisoned, stabbed, suffocated in your sleep, whatever you like. And then they take you to be cremated where your heels are cut just in case you’re still alive and try to escape." This is not only shocking in itself but also the fact that it can slip through the hands of the authorities. The prisoner added that "the doctors report simply reads ‘died of heart failure’ in order to cover up the murder."

In the prison services defense it is important to express that this sort of thing is not such a regular occurrence and that the age-old cliché of under funding is an issue with regard to staffing and thus control. Further, the prisoners are understandably emotionally charged at the mere existence of such occurrences. They fear such things happening to them. However, the duty officers are adequately welcoming to visitors and they appear to be holding no secrets. When asked about the conditions in his prison a duty officer in one of the city’s jails insisted that "they have every right to a liberal mail service and are routinely fed and watered." He went on to suggest that the guards try their best to keep things as humane as possible and certainly don’t encourage any of the atrocities mentioned.

This doesn’t interest the prisoners however as they believed that the issue of staying alive is more important than being fed on time. Further stories included a place called ‘cell 5’ where fluorescent lights are kept on all night and where the beds are riddled with parasites. These combined to create severe sleep deprivation for the resident prisoners.

So what can be done to improve conditions and prevent internal corruptions? For foreign prisoners their individual Embassies have lists of can and can’t do’s for their detainees. The British Consul for example can contact your family and visit you but cannot provide funds to get you out. They formally suggest that you learn the language so as to gain an understanding of your surroundings and generally keep a low profile until release. There are also other international agencies such as AMNESTY International which fights for basic human rights and Prisoners Abroad which supports those foreign detainees held under the law of the country they are kept in. They know of currently 1500 prisoners held captive on foreign soil and the chairman, Mike Whitlam says that "twenty three years on we are still seeing far too many prisoners held in conditions detrimental to their physical and emotional well being." In Nepali prisons at present there are prisoners from a range of countries from Afghanistan, China, Pakistan and Great Britain.

With regard to the majority of Nepali prisoners, conditions are not exactly at the forefront of government policy but with the increase in aid from abroad for anti-terrorist support the prison populations could see a decline in Maoist rebels which would lead to less over crowding and better control. There have been recent talks in London by officials from China, India and America about Nepal’s fragile economy. Included in the discussions was the government minister of Britain, Mike O’Brien. He has suggested that the government should increase military aid from seven hundred thousand pounds to seven million. However, this is all highly optimistic and cant be seen to directly help the situation in Prisons. Getting hold of the prison service and maintaining control is therefore going to be very difficult.

It is well documented that American and European prisons have problems of drugs, torture and murder. Further, prison populations in the West are increasing. Between 1993 and 1998 Britain’s increased by fifty one percent and at present there are over seventy thousand inmates in jails across the country. The USA has comparably very low unemployment rates to the other more developed nations but if the prison population is included, the level rises to astounding proportions. These numbers are only going to make gaining control even harder for governments and the atrocities within the judicial system are clearly so rooted and deeply hidden that it is going to take huge efforts to quash them. What these stories above show is that Nepal is no exception and that her prisons are, like those around the world, riddled with wrong doing and action needs to be taken.

Green life for Akash

Baby’s world looks much more secure if the rate at which they receive care in children homes continues. Children born of raped mothers are often abandoned, left at the temple’s and lack love and care. They are also likely to suffer the infanticide, stigma, and neglect but in the case of Aksh, it is a paradox. Barely six years old, he raises hope for all those mothers, who had seen horrors of rape and forced pregnancy in their tender age. These women have no idea where their kids are taken writes Nitya Nanda Timsina.

The future appears to hold much hope for the poor and abandoned children if the current levels of love and affection shown to them continue. Ask Akash Lama, a six -year-old student of Hermann SOS School, Bhaktapur to name his mother, he not only points a finger at his teacher but speaks aloud her name. Her teacher Goma stands by his side nodding her head to the affirmative.

Bizarre though it may sound to the world, Akash was conceived after his mother was raped when she was barely 14 years old. Today, Akash has grown so used to the family of teachers and matrons in a children’s home that he has begun calling "mother" to his teacher.

His caretaker says Akash’s mother was 13 years old, when a 55-year-old man in the village raped her. Akash was then snatched infant from his mother’s breast. "Akash does not remember all this because when we brought him, he was just newly born baby." He is now 7.

"These matrons and teachers can give all that a mother can give," says Akash’s Vice-Principal Krishna Sundar.

His hand barely holds a pencil but sliding it off the chart he draws a butterfly. His teacher dazed and amazed at his remarkable progress looks on the drawing he has scrawled unable to believe. His teacher teaches him next how to draw its wings too. He perfectly does so.

Children born of raped mothers are often abandoned, left at the temple’s and lack love and care. They are also likely to suffer the infanticide, stigma, and neglect but for Aksh’s case, it is a paradox. Barely six years old, he raises hope for all those mothers, who had seen horrors of rape and forced pregnancy in their tender age. These women have no idea where their kids are taken.

"I want to be a pilot. My hobby is football. I watch TV, I like cartoon picture..." he continues. His teacher Rita Bhusal smiles. Today, just a kindergarten student, he can write and read just like any other fortunate children.

Though there are no exact statistics encompassing all those children trapped in a world of horror, there are roughly 20 percent of the children in the school going age largely deprived of education and care at home. They are mostly poor, backward and other indigenous, who constitute the nation’s chunk of the poor children.

In order to give a closer attention to the needs and rights of such children, the government will open some 74,000 childcare centers by 2015. To address their needs, the Department of Education (DoE) has been holding parent’s awareness programme thrice a year, Chuman Singh Basnet, Director General of Education, DoE said. "In a move to help raise the learning of these children, we have opened some 2,915 childcare centers across 42 districts but still 20 percent "hard-core group" is missing their classrooms."

With the 26-28 April 2000 Dakar’s Education For All (EFA) meet at Senegal and a subsequent assessment undertaken in about 180 countries, it has been noted that early childhood care and education to babies has greatly expanded in Latin American, Caribbean and the East Asian countries while in South Asia, it remained feeble, very low.

It has been seen that in countries where slower population growth was achieved, they made progress in universal primary education. Factor such as fall in population has been the contributing factors for that achievement in those countries, while these countries also had achieved increasing number of literate women and better access of girls to primary education with an active pro-family and pro-health and family planning polices. In Nepal, along with this disparity, the male-female literacy gap rates too vary widely, almost by 30 percent.

Bangladesh, China, India and Indonesia have made remarkable progress in literacy through the same approach. In Nepal, though primary education has received more than a 50 percent of the share in education budget and nearly 16-17 percent of foreign aid and grants, the impact is very minimum.

However, director general Basnet said that the achievements in Nepal have been satisfactory except that a 20-percent of the "core-group" children is still to be enrolled into schools.

Roughly, 10 percent Net Enrollment Rate (NER) has been achieved between 1998 -2000 and that keeping 1990 as base year, primary school cycle completion rate has increased from 48 percent to 54 percent during the same years. This also shows that 46 percent of the children do not complete their primary education.

By the year 2015, Akash will grow into a fully grown boy of 17 years but will he be able to go for pilot training and his village mother, who once gave tumultuous birth to him know that he rides above luminous cloud? This is a question uppermost in my mind ever since I met Akash, a lovely little boy last week.

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