Women: Their condemnation is a double sentence

Video translation is as follows:

Female # 1: Maybe I’m here for a very serious crime, but the truth is there is more humanity in here than out there.

Female Reporter: Between the night of December 12 and 13, 308 women were taken from the Topo Chico Prison to be transferred here to the new Escobedo Women's Social Reintegration Center.

Female # 1: My family was left homeless, without property and without money, and here I am. I'm going to leave here matured. And, people who have a lot of money, a lot of power, can come and go.

  

Female Reporter: On Tuesday, February 26, admission was allowed. That day there were 379 women. Women's names are changed for security. Monica has been in prison for 24 years and is paying a sentence of 40 years for homicide.

Female # 1: I feel fortunate because my family did not abandon me but I have seen the face of my partners who do suffer. They suffer because their children, their parents, and their husbands have abandoned them, and well it is wrong.

  

Female Reporter: A prison command says that between 70 and 80 percent of women in the prison suffer from the abandonment of their relatives.

Female # 2: In fact there are many people who are afraid, I myself included, we are afraid to leave. There is the bullying of people, of the family itself, whether you wanted this or not it affects us too much.

Female Reporter: Patrica is the mother of twins. A boy and a girl, one year olds,living here with her. She was arrested with her then partner, she was already pregnant. She is accused of crimes against health and homicide, but she has not clarified why she is being held.

Female # 2: Even I am surprised at the strength and everything that comes out of me, because with a baby you go through ups  and downs. I’m with both of them, while one falls asleep, the other rises.

Female Reporter: The National Criminal Enforcement Act allows children to live in the prison until they turn 3 years old. In February there were 12 children, and 15 pregnant women. Andrea is another prisoner. Outside her 3 teenage children are waiting for her.

Andrea: What encourages me is that they are waiting for me, that Christmas is already going to happen with them, knowing that nothing that is happening here is worth not wanting to continue.

Female Reporter: Her husband is in the Cereso de Cadereyta. Both have a 50-year sentences for the crime of kidnapping. Civil organizations agree that most women reach prison because they are linked to a crime committed by a man.

Female # 3: If they would just listen to the cases of each of the inmates. In every case it leaves you with a lump in your throat, it’s a saying. When I listen to them, I say to myself: and I complain.

Female Reporter: Information requested by Transparency Groups shows that kidnapping is the main crime for which there are women held in the State with 70 inmates. Next would be homicide, with 60, and the third, crimes against health with 58 women.

Female # 1: I think that people, instead of criticizing, should themselves draw near and see their children, and attend to them a little more, see them because, because the law of karma exists and the world is round, and suddenly it gives us some little turns. I never thought that I’d find myself in a place such as this and here I am.

 Sol Prendido Borderland Beat Source