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A woman, about 21 years old, carefully strokes her baby, as if to put her to sleep.
The child lets out a whimper and the mother strokes her even more vigorously; unaware of its surroundings the baby occasionally lets out a sharp shriek.
Nearby, a child of about two years twirls around with her mother’s hair and the mother irritably brushes her away as she sits patiently waiting for the arrival of promised guests.
It seems the women have been waiting for long and their singing, which began fervently, is slowly turning into a whisper, as they await the arrival of Obert Gutu, the deputy Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs.
Another woman, who is pregnant, looks disinterested at the proceedings and keeps herself occupied with tending a pot on the fire, while chasing away a boy who looks a year old and seems happy to make himself as much of a nuisance as possible.
These women are part of hundreds of female prisoners incarcerated at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison’s female section, where they are imprisoned with their children.
A senior prison official, Betty Chibwe told Gutu that there are as many as 12 babies behind prison walls and because of their young ages they had to be jailed with their mothers.
“There are 12 babies here and they range from between zero and four years and there are three pregnant women,” she said.
As she chronicled the problems they faced at one of the country’s most notorious detention centres, she said of major concern was the lack of food which compromised the health of the mothers and their babies.
Over the years the country’s prisons have faced acute food shortages, with reports of malnutrition and pellagra affecting prisoners.
One prisoner even alleged that in 2008 there were mass graves at prisons as people died due to starvation.
The Red Cross has since intervened and is providing meals for all inmates.
“The food is still not enough, mothers have to share their rations with their babies and this is hardly enough for them.
“We need more for inmates who have their children here,” the prison officer added.
Food shortages at Chikurubi are worsened by the fact that the Zimbabwe Prison Services has barred relatives from bringing inmates food, forcing prisoners to rely on rations of beans and sadza daily.
A notice outside the main gate reads that food may only be brought on public holidays like Christmas, New Year’s Day, Heroes and Defence Forces’ Day.
The prisons department’s budget does not cater for the children also doing time, and they have to share their mothers’ own paltry rations.
The nursing mothers felt this was unfair on them, fearing malnutrition for both themselves and their babies.
The prisons’ official further told Gutu that they faced serious transport problems and the only ambulance that the institution had had long broken down.
“These women and their babies sometimes fall ill and there is no way we can transport them to hospitals and this creates problems for us,” she said.
With the acute shortage of transport, some women, Gutu heard, had given birth within prison walls a situation that ZPS said they would love to avoid in fear of disease outbreaks and complications during birth.
An inmate said a significant number of prisoners were HIV positive and needed special care during birth.
However, since they could not go to hospital they risked passing HIV to their children and other inmates.
The Zimbabwe Association of Crime Prevention and Rehabilitation, an non-governmental organisation that deals with the welfare of prisoners, estimates there are more than 300 children in the country’s prisons, the majority whom are less than two-years-old.
A woman, who seemed to have stayed longest in prison, told the minister that the issue of child inmates was a painful one and if the government had any compassion breastfeeding mothers should receive amnesty, as most of them had reformed and learned that prison was not for raising children.
“Please look at their cases,” she pleaded. “When you see all those street children out there, they are our children because once they reach a certain age they are discharged from here and they will have nowhere to go and they end up on the streets,” she said.
The women then broke into song and dance, pleading with the deputy minister to hear their cases, hoping that Gutu would put in a good word for them in case there was a general amnesty, freeing prisoners.
“I cannot promise that you will all be released but when there is an amnesty some would be freed,” he said.
Gutu said his experience as a lawyer had shown that the prison system reformed a majority of women, though he warned that repeat offenders would not be lucky in case there was an amnesty.
After that the inmates went down on their knees and began praying in tongues, that left a majority of the guests with tears in their eyes, bidding Gutu an emotional farewell.
BY NQABA MATSHAZI
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