Maïmouna Diouf served a number of years in a ladies’s jail, discovered responsible of infanticide, a cost she denies. She says situations had been harsh — soiled mattresses on the ground, a scarcity of ample meals and hygiene merchandise. She now volunteers to assist feminine inmates.
Ricci Shryock for NPR
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Ricci Shryock for NPR
The primary time she entered the jail, she felt as if she had been going to faint.
The yr was 2021. Maïmouna Diouf had been discovered responsible of infanticide — a cost she denies, claiming she gave beginning to a stillborn youngster that she buried with out notifying the authorities.
Diouf appeared round her shared room within the Thies detention heart in Thies, Senegal. She was one in every of 10 prisoners assigned to sleep within the small area. There have been soiled, previous mattresses on the ground, she says. There was a odor coming from them that she couldn’t precisely place. “That is my life now? How am I purported to sleep right here?” she thought to herself.
Launched in 2025, Diouf now volunteers to assist feminine inmates in Senegal. The situations that girls in jail face had been highlighted in occasions held in Senegal on Worldwide Girls’s Day this previous week — together with the distribution of free, reusable menstrual merchandise, which are not available to prisoners. Diouf agreed to share her story to convey consideration to the problems that have an effect on the nation’s roughly 280 ladies prisoners — about 2% of the overall jail inhabitants of 14,000.
Men and women charged with against the law in Senegal are on the mercy of a system the place justice shouldn’t be speedily allotted. In keeping with a report launched in 2024 by the U.S. State Division, “judicial backlogs and absenteeism of judges resulted in a median wait of two years between the submitting of costs and the start of a trial.” Throughout this era of limbo, an estimated 60% of these charged are saved in jail. Girls are held within the Liberte VI jail for ladies in Dakar.
“It’s totally troublesome for these ladies, particularly the ladies who’re harmless, however they’re in jail ready for trial. They generally should not have the means to have a lawyer, and in Senegal there’s a lack of judges so that may delay the trial, too,” says Seynabou Dieme, the top of social-education companies on the Liberte VI ladies’s jail.
Dieme confirmed some ladies have waited as much as six years for his or her trial to start.
In keeping with Senegalese press, the federal government adopted a legislation in February geared toward jail reforms that would come with bettering jail situations. NPR known as related authorities places of work to verify this report and verify on the standing of reforms however acquired no reply.
An added burden for ladies
After which there’s the matter of stigma.
“The tradition usually says {that a} lady has no proper to commit an error. As a result of the girl should handle the home and group and lift the youngsters. If she falls, she brings the entire household down,” says Dieme.
In keeping with a 2021 report by the group Jail Insider, which displays situations in Senegal’s prisons, practically half of feminine prisoners in detention had been discovered responsible of infanticide, and 23% had been incarcerated for abortion, which is illegitimate in Senegal besides in instances the place the process would save the lifetime of the pregnant lady.
The character of the crimes that girls are charged with provides to the stigma, says Fatou Faye. She’s a supervisor for the Jail Mission at Tostan, a Senegalese group that distributed the hygiene pads on Worldwide Girls’s Day and that teaches inmates about human rights in addition to sensible expertise to generate earnings in jail and after launch – dying material and stitching, for instance. Faye additionally runs household mediations to assist former detainees rebuild relationships after launch.
Fatou Faye is a a supervisor for the jail venture run by Tostan, a Senegal-based human rights group. She says she want to see a extra forgiving public angle towards ladies who’ve been accused or convicted of crimes: “They’re all human, and she will be able to do one thing she regrets. So she ought to have an opportunity to have a clear slate.”
Ricci Shryock for NPR
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Ricci Shryock for NPR
Diouf says she was fortunate — she nonetheless had the assist of her household after being sentenced — which made an enormous distinction whereas serving her time. Her brother had dropped her off at jail that first day, noticed the previous mattresses in her cell and supplied to convey her a brand new one. Relations additionally introduced her additional meals and important feminine hygiene merchandise, which the state doesn’t at all times present.
Household assist — and rejection
From her expertise, Maïmouna Diouf reiterates what prisoner educator Dieme says: Many ladies are rejected by their households even earlier than they’re sentenced.
“They had been at all times crying, as a result of it is troublesome to be rejected by your personal household,” she added of fellow prisoners whom she turned shut with whereas she was incarcerated.
Even when members of the family do need to assist a cherished one in jail, they could face societal stress to face again. That was the expertise of AF, who served 4 years for having an abortion. She requested to be recognized solely by her initials due to the persevering with stigma of getting been in jail.
It was 2001. AF was a younger mom who turned pregnant and felt she couldn’t assist a second youngster, so she determined to have a clandestine abortion. The process triggered issues and bleeding; when she was taken to the hospital the well being care staff reported to the police that she had an abortion.
AF says her mom and sister needed to supply assist, however group and different members of the family – together with uncles — urged them to desert her. “They saved saying I used to be a nasty lady, and did not deserve their assist,” she says. However her mom and sister insisted on persevering with to assist AF — offering not solely materials items like meals and cleaning soap however providing emotional assist as nicely, promising they’d welcome her again as soon as she was launched.
“It was painful to observe them [her mom and sister] endure,” she says. “Whereas I may do nothing from contained in the jail.” She says she’s grateful her sister and mom didn’t cave into the stress and helped her discover work and assist as soon as she was launched. After she was launched in 2005, AF started working with Tostan’s prison-based group schooling program to assist incarcerated ladies put together for all times after jail.
Fatou Faye, a supervisor for the charity Tostan’s jail venture, enters a ladies’s jail in Dakar, Senegal for an Worldwide Girls’s Day occasion.
Ricci Shryock for NPR
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Ricci Shryock for NPR
Life after freedom
For ladies in jail, says AF, the stigma carries on even after launch.
“There are ladies who had been in jail, and after they get out, their households don’t welcome them. Usually they flip to crime, in order that they find yourself coming again to jail,” she says. “Households and communities ought to have a mentality of pardoning and of serving to.”
Faye, the supervisor for the Jail Mission at Tostan, agreed that she want to see the general public angle towards ladies accused or convicted of crimes to be one in every of acceptance to assist them reenter society. And one in every of forgiveness.
“They’re all human, and she will be able to do one thing she regrets,” Faye says of the typical prisoner. “So she ought to have an opportunity to have a clear slate.”
Ricci Shryock is a author and photographer in Dakar, Sénégal. This September, Cassava Republic will publish her nonfiction novel about one lady’s expertise as one of many feminine fighters throughout a struggle for independence in Guinea-Bissau within the Nineteen Sixties.
