African Prisons Project

I’ve just been reading an article about youth crime in the ‘Monitor’ newspaper generally seen to be as Uganda’s more liberal newspaper and as supporting the opposition party.

It was discussing the problem of school children going on strike due to their conditions and the need to ‘handle them with an iron fist’. The writer suggests ‘provision must be made for easy waiver of jurisdiction of juvenile courts for crimes occasioning impunity, so that young people are tried in adult courts and punished as adults.’ This reminds me of the case in the UK when James Bulger’s killers Venables and Thompson were tried in an adult court although aged only ten and eleven. They were heckled by the people seated in the public gallery and members of the press and spent much of the trial playing games with each other because they didn’t understand what was going on. The European Court of Human Rights later ruled that thier right to a fair trial had been breached. Just imagine what it’s like in Uganda where accused persons have far fewer rights. It reminds me of a case I was reading about in early Victorian times. The judge was asking what kind of message it would send out if he spared a ten year old boy the death penalty for stealing. Although in Uganda under eighteens are not meant to be sentenced to death, in practice this is not the case. A challenge for us is how we can lead a fight for rehabilitation and restorative justice for young criminals rather than the same harsh treatment and long sentences meted out to adults. Education must be the first step, as well as trying to improve thier living conditions. Studies in the UK found that the poorer the conditions in Young Offender Instiutions the more likely the inmate is to reoffend on his release, as well as increased risks of self harm and suicide. Although we haven’t worked in remand homes and borstals in Uganda yet it is something that I hope to make a priority for the coming months.

I’m back in the UK at the moment, trying to study for exams for my Master’s (Criminology and Criminal Justice) although the good weather’s making it all the more difficult.

When I was leaving Uganda two weeks ago I was interested to see the front page of the government mouth piece newspaper ‘The New Vision’ discussing the findings of the Inspector General of Government in a report on corruption in the Ugandan government. The Inspector General (also a judge) stated that the courts and judiciary are the most corrupt institutions in the country, with more than two thirds of dealings with their members involving a bribe of some sort. This brought home to me, and also hopefully the Ugandan people, the difficulty of calling everyone in prison a criminal. The fact that justice or not may depend on your ability to pay off the police, prosecutor, magistrate or judge confirms what many prisoners have told me about being asked to literally buy their way out of prison. It reaffirmed the fact that most prisoners are poor and ill educated those least able to use the system for their advantage. Combined with the continued imprisonment of debtors in the country, despite United Nations Human Rights Commission advice not to, indicates that very many people are in prison just because of their poverty. And of course, once they are there they are the ones who are unable to pay lawyers to appeal on their behalf. We meet many prisoners who are unable to have a trial or an appeal because their files are ‘lost’ and who ask us to pay a lawyer to try and trace them and allow them to have their day in court, in accordance with their constitutional rights. More than once a prisoner has asked me, ‘How often are you offered bribes as a magistrate in the UK?’ or ‘Are you under much political pressure when you make decisions in court?’ Of course, in this country there are issues relating to the quality of justice depending on what lawyer you can afford, access to legal aid and the over representation of poor and marginalized groups in prison, but I feel I can answer that on the whole our judiciary are pretty independent. I believe the same could also be the case in countries such as Uganda. Botswana is an African country with a more impartial judiciary. One of the areas that the African Prisons Project is looking into is helping facilitate training for judges and magistrates in Uganda on the law relating to human rights and judicial decision making. I’ve no doubt that the country has many competent lawyers and judges, but similar projects run in Tanzania by the UK Law Council have proved a success and were well received.

Last Thursday evening we decided to forgo going out inf avour of staying at home and watching a film. Having searched a good number of the video libraries in Kampala for ‘Shawshank Redemption’, which few people here could pronounce, let alone direct us where to get it from, we settled on ‘Driving Miss Daisy’. When you have no television (through choice) and the country you are in has only one small cinema, showing mostly Bollywood and ‘B’ grade American teen movies from the late 90’s, such reliable films have a lot of appeal. As we were setting up the computer, ready to watch, Tony pointed out the strange sounds coming from a neighbouring house. The rest of us listened and in the distance could hear a woman yelling, as if in incredible pain. Tony informed us that our old neighbour had died, and that it was a risky period as such old women had a tendancy to be witches and she might come and haunt us. Keen to be good neighbours and an active part of our local community, Hannah, Esther, Saturday, Tony, Penny (cook) and I put on some respectable clothes and walked in complete darkness towards the neighbours house, the dim glow of a paraffin lamp in the doorway our guide. When we reached the house we walked around the back into a small court yard, shared by three or four mud houses of the type the old man had occupied. I had been hurridly briefed by Penny about what to expect, and the way mourning takes place in Uganda. I didn’t have the chance to tell her that during my first three or four months here during my gap year whilst looking after the abandoned AIDS/TB patients at Mulago Hospital that I knew very well the Ugandan way of death. Taking up most of the floor space of the main room of the two room house, an old man (I don’t know if wizards are common here too) lay on a mattress, with people surrounding him sitting on the floor. Immediately next to him was a woman who must have been his wife/ one of his wives, wailing over his face. Roughly translated she spent the next few hours exclaiming ‘Oh! Grandfather! sir! Daddy!you have died! My dear, you are dead! Mother, madame! Grandfather has died!! You provided for this house, now you are dead! Pain! Dead!Ouch!’. I sat, with my housemates, on tiny desks, probably borrowed from the local infant school in the courtyard and watched the scene framed in the doorway as men began to bring logs and branches to keep mourners warm during this and the next night of ‘lumbe’, what we might call in the UK a wake, before burial. As all this was going on, the local night spot, ‘Club Amigos’, was playing seventies disco and like a few of the other mourners I suspect, we decided to shift there for a bit whilst crowds assembled at the dead man’s house.

All this clearly bought back memories of my first day in Uganda. I was collected from near Entebbe Airport by a driver from Hospice Africa Uganda, my first base here. Shortly after reaching the hospice premises and being shown round the compound, a pick up truck drove in. Being one of the few men around I was called to come and assist with removing the contents from the rear. It contained the coffin of a member of the hospice staff who had just died at a nearby hospital. Rather than going to a funeral parlour, the majority of Ugandans chose to carry out the whole operation themselves, the first stop is to one of the roadside coffin brokers for a ready to go coffin for £10 or £25. As we got the woman’s body into the hospice lounge candels were brought in, the coffin was opened and staff and relatives of the woman began assembling for an all night vigil. Intrigued by the situation I stayed there throughout, with three small children by my side, sharing a hymn book, who turned out to be the dead lady’s offspring.

It’s about time to begin work at prisons so I’ll sign off here. Our container is now due to arrive on the 10th May, so until then we are in something of a state of limbo as we plan exactly how to store, sort and distribute the books.

The last couple of days have been pretty slow. We’ve been trying to find a new house before we have to leave ours on the seventh of next month, by which time I’ll be back in the UK. After trying and failing the one international estate agent, Knight Frank, we’ve resorted to local ‘brokers’ or ‘blokers’ as the signs often say, ‘r’s and ‘l’s are somewhat interchangeable. You give them a small fee, although often significantly increased when they see white people, and they show you a few houses they think might be suitable. Potentially suitable houses have included those with no kitchen, no wiring, no road leading up to them and no roof, and as it usually takes a fair amount of time to get to any of the houses the whole process is time consuming and de-motivating.

On a brighter note, I intended to write earlier in the week about our visit to one of Kampala’s less down market disco’s last Friday night. ‘Ange Noir’ is located in the industrial area of town near the abattoir and can be relied upon to be filled with a mixture of bandana wearing ‘homeboys’, high healed and micro skirted prostitutes and campusers, as well as a smattering of NGO workers and ‘working class’ (as opposed to peasant class) Ugandans. We were sitting near the bar, observing the scene on the mirrors that cover the room, illuminated by black lights, as a familiar face walked in. He went up and hugged Tony, and whilst I realised I knew him I couldn’t be sure where from. then it dawned on me. He had been in the maximum security prison ever since I began visiting it. I would speak to him from time to time and he would tell me how he had been on remand for more than five years for treason. He was always optimistically speaking about being released but I felt it was more likely he’d end up on death row. It turns out his brother is an opposition MP and the court martial had decided that he could spend one day in prison for his crime. We danced for many hours, joined by one of the politicians he was out with. As sometimes happens at one point the dance floor was clear apart from the two ‘whites’ (Hannah and I) and the man I came to refer to as ‘Treason Guy’. Clearly after so long in prison he was determined to have some fun and said he only drinks Red Bull from morning until evening. He said he might consider trying alcohol in a year’s time, but now he’s high simply because he’s free.

We had a busy weekend. On Friday we had a belated party for my birthday at our new, temporary house in Luzira close to the majority of the prisons we are working at. Having invited all the students who have been doing counseling with us at prisons, as well as some lawyers, friends from Hospice Africa where I spent most of my first visits to Uganda and prison officers, we decided to buy a goat to cater for everyone. The first part of Friday was spent killing, gutting and skinning the goat in our back garden, slightly grisly but it was very tasty. We hired a DJ (for twenty pounds) and danced until after six in the morning. It was fortunate that we had the DJ as in the middle of the evening the power went off and as we have no generator he was able to plug his in to one of our sockets and light the whole house. I think it also cemented our relationship with many of the groups we are working with.

On Sunday we went for prayers in condemned section. When it came to our turn to talk I told the inmates about some preliminary discussions we’d had int he last week with some groups of lawyers, some of whom we are considering taking on full time to be APP lawyers and to to do capital trials, death penalty appeals and to follow up missing files, represent people who have been on remand for more than five years etc etc. The condemned inmates were very positive about this, also because if they went back to court for re-sentencing as a result of their appeal on the 22nd May being successful, they would be less likely to be given the death penalty again if they had good representation. They have a lot of hope and anticipation for ‘their’ day in court next month, and asking for anyone who feels like doing so to add to their prayers that it turns out well for them. After I spoke they sang ‘happy birthday’ to me, with an impromptu second verse ‘you look like a prisoner, you look like a prisoner’ I don’t know if this is referring to my new convict style haircut or being ‘a prisoner by choice’.

It looks like we’ll be able to get storage for all our books and computers for free. This will be fantastic and will meant that the whole shipment, from the books and computers themselves, to the storage in the UK, transport to Uganda and storage here will be free. We can’t quantify these donations or boast that we raised so much money to be able to pay for them, but to me this is a good example of how we are able to make a little money go a very long way.

It’s been quite a while since I updated the blog. Since writing the last post we have acquired a car, a Mitsubishi Pajero 1995 model and a driver called Isaac. Having a vehicle is making life much easier and more efficient for us, although we quickly realised it’s not going to be cheap having a vehicle here. The roads are really punishing and we’ve been stuck in mud on several occasions and been stopped by the police a few times too. However, being able to buy materials and take them to the prisons without having to worry about organising a ’special hire’ taxi and to be able to get in a car and move from prison to prison at ease is definitely speeding up our work. The project to rehabilitate the sick bay at Kampala Remand Prison is nearing completion. We fumigated it earlier this week, which according to the report from the pest control company would remove the ‘bats, rats, cockroaches and ants’. The counselling project we are carrying out, working with Makerere University students seems to be very well received, with large number of prisoners turning out to get involved in group discussions as well as individual counselling at each session.

Early next week our 40ft container of books and computers is due to arrive in Kampala. We’re trying to find a warehouse which will be able to accommodate the books and have space for the container to be unloaded, not an easy job, but we want to be sure the books are carefully sorted and categorised to allow for them to be allocated according to where they can bring the most benefit. We are now formalising our plans for libraries at four prisons in and around Kampala initially, with the intention of then creating another five or six libraries and IT centres at prisons ‘up country’. We are beginning with prisons which have a population of at least seven hundred prisoners, so each library can benefit the largest possible number of prisoners. Inmates in prisons close to the capital are also more likely to have received some education and to have basic literacy than those further afield.

Since the end of last month we have had Hannah Meadows staying and working with us. She finished her second year of Medicine at Nottingham University and came out to Uganda for the summer but stayed on. She spent eight months running a hospice for widows in Soroti which is towards the north of the country. She is now managing our accounts and administration and will be with us until October, perhaps longer. It’s great having her around and her organisation and vision are helping things to run smoothly. It also makes a change to have a woman on board full time, as until now the majority of the volunteers and our few staff have been men. I’ve already seen that this can be an advantage in situations where we get into difficulties with prison officers- her charm quickly works on machine gun wielding corporals looking for the opportunity to flex their muscles and show us who’s boss!

I spent my last couple of days in Kampala organising an art competition for prisoners on death row, the main section of the Maximum Security prison, Victoria Women’s and Jija Remand prison. Many prisoners seem interested in art and craft but have very limited materials at their disposal. We bought paints and pastels and pencils and paper and distributed them to the maximum security prison and death row as well as Victoria Women’s and Jinja Remand prison. The compettition is open to all prisoners and the first prize at each prison is a mattress, blanket and some meat, second prize a blanket, soap and some meat, third prize soap, tea leaves and meat- we wanted to encourage as many prisoners as possible to enter so thought it worth raising the stakes. One of the deputy officers in charge of the maximum prison suggested that we could try to sell any particularly good entries in order to raise money for their creators.

As I was boarding the flight from Dubai to London the purser asked what my APP badge stood for and I told him about the work we do. He was quick to say that he was strongly in favour of the death penalty and the principle of ‘an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’. We stood arguing about whether it’s ever right for the state to kill for aobut ten minutes after the other passengers were seated. As I was preparing to go to sleep after finishing dinner the stewardess said the purser wanted to talk to me. Thus I spent the next five hours sitting on a flight attendant seat the purser arguing it was the right of a victim’s family for the perpetrator to be killed (or blood money paid in Islam, after which they go free), I was arguing that everyone has a right to live. Various stewardesses took turns coming to sit with us, mostly they were against the death penalty, apart from, said one, when a person has turned into a demon and there’s no good left in them. At one point the pilot came to join us. After intially joining in with a stewardess and my conversation about Jamaica, fondly recalling the times he visited a hotel called Hedonism where he first witnessed wife swapping in a jacuzzi and picked alcohol and cigarettes freely at the bar, he said that abolition of the death penalty is a sign of a progressive country. Although the purser and I couldn’t come to ana greement on the death penalty or the possibility of reforming prisons he said he was interested in coming to visit minor offenders including ‘prostitutes, pickpockets and rape victims’ in prison and that he’d bring them a cow or two. Several of the pretty young stewardesses said they’d also like to go, no doubt this will add to our popularity with prisoners and not only because they promised to bring suitcases of clothes and powdered milk.

This morning I attended a pupillage fair for would be barristers at Lincoln’s Inn in London. Despite wearing numerous layers, and people telling me the weather had been quite good recently, I was frozen. Inside the fair scores of people in their twenties stood around tables talking about the merits of the commerical bar or mixed sets. Many were wearing sharp double breasted suits and mirror shine shoes and the women looked business like. Next week I’m doing a week’s work experience at a barrister’s chambers in London. Looking at all the other lawyers to be I wondered what the firm would make of me, having only packed a few clothes it looks like I’ll have to turn up in my pinstripe suit which Esther and Rebecca have washed so many times (I have to try and salvage ties and suits before they end up in the bucket under the tap in the garden) that the jacket and trousers now look to be different colours. The alternative is a double breasted navy suit which I bought from Owino market in Kampala for eight pounds. My dad said it reminded him of the shapeless garments favoured by Africans and Indian administrators in the Colonial Service, or a three piece silver suit for thirteen pounds which came with three buttons missing and a couple of stains. As for my shoes, the ones I’ve had since A level are still going strong, although since I had them resoled (the soles were gradually getting melted by motor bike exhaust pipes) by a man that does everything by hand sitting on the street near the military barracks it looks as if my feet are almost as wide as they are long.

We had a late supper on Friday. I’d been at the gym at the American Club, where for the third time in a row the power had gone off in the middle of my session. The staff helpfully suggested that I should do free weights and use a candle, no chance of a refund of the entrance fee. When we don’t have power at home it takes about an hour longer than usual to prepare meals than when using our new tiny electric oven. We used to have a paraffin stove for cooking in the garden, but Rebecca, our first maid, who’s been off for some time but assures us she’s coming back next month, took it home with her. Now we have to prepare a charcoal stove which takes about an hour before it is ready to use and can only manage small saucepans. Things were made worse because Esther (new maid) is sick with malaria and typhoid. She refused to go to the main government hospital at Mulago but is going to the local clinic for a course of injections.

Tony always says that its unfair that God gave Ugandans so many diseases. A look into the wardrobe at Jinja Women’s Prison where a few boxes of medicine are scattered indicated that scabies, which I thought only affected dogs, is one of the ailments afflicting prisoners. As we sat down to eat the power came on and whilst searching for something to listen to on the radio I came across Radio Maria, a local Catholic station. The entire programme consisted of a small group of men and women chanting Hail Marys in Luganda. It lasts for long, possibly hours. Although I couldn’t understand the words they were saying, listening to it is almost mesmerising, rather like listening to the audio channel of recitation of the Qur’an whilst flying here on Emirates.

Saturday and Tony were keen to go out, complaining that they hadn’t done so for some time. Somewhat reluctantly I agreed to accompany them and we took bodda boddas to Club Silk, one of the most popular night clubs in Kampala. For the next three hours we danced non stop (apart from the two occasions when the power went off and we were left in complete darkness) mostly to American music but also some more enjoyable Ugandan tunes. As Tony and Saturday practiced their moves I danced on the sideline, seemingly always within the view of a slightly worse for wear looking prostitute. She intimated that she liked me and tried to dance, although the result was more like the twitching of a recently slaughtered animal. Judging from the glazed expression in her eye and the faint whiff of vomit I guessed she must have been drunk or on drugs. She had a long fresh scar down her left cheek and was a fine example, in my opinion, of the need for action on prostitution in Kampala other than simply sending the women to jail.

Sunday morning saw the arrival, for the third or fourth time in the last month, of the Local Council (Grade 1) Chairman at our house, accompanied by the local Defence Officer. On their previous visits I’ve been fortunate enough to have been out. They come asking for our contribution towards the local night defence patrols ( I like to imagine it as group of Ugandan hill-billys armed with with pitch forks and machetes), although no one I know has ever seen one. I said I couldn’t understand why we had to pay them this money, especially when they military police are based near by, but then I was reminded that you have to pay them too. It seems that in a fund raising drive they have begun a crack down on ‘idle and disorderly’ people in the area where we live, anyone standing on the street without much to do is expected to pay a bribe or risk detention.

We spent Sunday morning at St John’s Chapel (Church of Uganda) Death Row Branch. Fewer inmates were there than usual, perhaps a reflection of the trend all over Uganda of a shift away from the established churches to more charismatic ones. The inmates sang choruses such as ‘Where will I go when I die’ and ‘When the roll is called Up Yonder I’ll be there’ as well as more upbeat ones like ‘Jesus number one’ (repeat 100 times). One of the inmates was wearing a tuxedo shirt, conforming with the requirement that they wear white clothes. I wondered if the man in England or America or wherever the shirt came from could have imagined that after the parties and events he had worn it at it would be sent from the charity shop, via a Kampala market and an unhappy family to become the daily garb of someone on death row in Uganda. The Psalm for the day was Psalm 23, the same one that is read at executions. Although the inmates sing and greet visitors it doesn’t take long before we are reminded of the purpose of them being there. Chris Rwakasissi, a former government minister and now condemned, took time to tell the congregation stories, he may be condemned but he’s still in control. He spoke with fondness about the time when he was shopping in Harrods for his son’s school uniform when an announcement asked all the customers to leave as the Queen was coming to do her shopping. He told us about his time spent at the Ugandan Embassy in Moscow, when on Christmas Day they were killing a goat in the embassy’s compound which was overlooked by a hospital. As goats are apparently not eaten in Russia and animals are killed in abattoirs, the outraged nurses called the policeand the animal protection unit and the now half skinned goat was confiscated. He reminded us that although no one on death row, innocent or guilty, was an angel, that ‘we’re not all that bad’. The long awaited case in the Supreme Court, challenging the legality of the death penalty in Uganda is due to begin soon as the president recently appointed several acting judges to the court. One of seven who will hear the death penalty case had written books in favour of the death penalty and another was a complainant in the case which resulted in one of the inmates being there. Part of our work over the next few weeks will be to begin a letter writing campaign in the UK to show the judges listening to the case that there is international support for the petition. Now that the CDs that Ben, James, Andy, Martyn and Steve from Bury St Edmunds came out here to record in November are ready we will be able to send them to judges,politicians, celebrities, royalty and anyone else we can think of in the UK and elsewhere to let them listen to the condemned inmates explain for themselves why the death penalty in Uganda is so unfair and why they should lend their support to the movement for its abolition.

I woke up before 0700 yesterday morning to go for a run with a friend from the American Club which is close to my house.I’ve noticed that more people seem to be running in Kampala these days,though I’ve no idea why.We began running on roads which were so dusty that the guy I was running with said they would give us TB. We moved onto paved roads, which very rarely have pavements, and found that we were engulfed in the thick black smoke of vehicles which clearly haven’t been serviced for a long time. As we ran we passed dead dogs in the roads and numerous early morning roadside bonfires, rather than having rubbish collection people make a small pile of their household plastics and papers and burn it outside their front gate. Finally we did a few laps round a Catholic sports field,which doubles as a rubbish dump and is kept in some order by massive,ugly marabou storks who pick at the rubbish and an old woman who is the attendant.

We used motorbikes to travel to Kigo prisons, two more prisons where we’re working with the community psychology students to provide counseling. We began in the male section. As we passed through the tiny gate into the prison reception inmates began to assemble as a result of the rallying cry of the Chief Wardress,the only occasion when I’ve seen a female officer moving alone in a mens prison. On the wall of the reception hangs a black phone with a dial and a box next to it with buttons A/B. One makes calls by connecting to the telephone exchange you require and you then tell the operator what extension you need,insert your shilling and press button A.It’s probably from the ’50s. As we sat with the inmates, ready to talk to them about issues of self esteem and mental health an inmate, fluent in English began talking to us and the other prisoners about a lot of different things, not making much sense. After about five minutes five prisoners and a guard carrying a swagger stick escorted him away to the ‘punishment cells’ but about an hour later he had changed clothes and was walking around the prison talking to himself. I listened to about six inmates problems. Two of them complained that they were on remand for capital offences but their files had been lost, it’s not uncommon here and leads to a long time spent in prison. Other civilians, going to court martial for weapons related offences,were complaining that their lawyers had been sent away from the court. Several complained that when the soldiers arrest them to take them to court martial they also confiscate all their belongings and vehicles. One man said that when his wife had gone to try and get their belongings back she had been killed. We got home to find that we had no electricty and no water, a small problem in comparison to these inmates though.

Wednesday afternoon saw Saturday burning our rubbish heap with more petrol than usual. As the fire was taking hold he heard a pop which he took to be the newly resident snake exploding. I had offered him 5,000/- (one pound fifty) if he could kill the snake, and having demanded evidence, I was brought a lump of molten goo on a stick. Saturday assured me this was the animal that had caused us a lot of concern and I paid up, with the proviso that if any snake was seen in the compound he’d lose it

Yesterday was spent at Jinja Prison with the community psychology students. I enjoy the time we spend with them and they have a lot of enthusiasm for assisting prisoners. Added to this, a sign in central Kampala informed us that we can now celebrate an Ebola free Uganda, I knew it was going to be a good day. Wes tarted the day at the remand prison. We arrived to find that the Officer in Charge was out of the office, and since his deputy was unable to contact him on the phone he invited us to wait for two and a quarter hours for his return. We regularly encounter this kind of situation and I always try to keep quite for a bit before using gently persuasion to encourage the officer to allow us in and to reassure him that he’s not going to get in trouble for doing so. It worked. Within quarter of an hour we entered and got seated in front of the prison’s 700 inmates who had quickly assembled after hearing the banging of a tire inner hanging from a tree which announced our arrival. The students spoke for some time about the dangers of drugs, HIV and conflict resolution. We then moved on to individual counseling sessions, which I enjoy the most. The counseling group take their chairs to various points in the prison compound and inmates kneel on the floor next to them, rather like priests hearing confession, inmates aren’t allowed to sit on chairs. I spent most of my time speaking to a man in his late fifties or sixties. Other inmates call him professor. He has been waiting for his trial for two years for defilement. He passionately argues that he didn’t do it and that he’s been framed, not unlikely because the evidence required for defilement seems to be minimal. He has had several books published and we’re lending him our type writer so he can type up another one he’s written in prison. He says he wants to run for the presidency in the 2011 elections and like Obama he believes in governments of ideas. It can be difficult to know how to respond to prisoners like him. I spent a long time speaking to another inmate on remand for defilement. He was charged with defiling his seventeen year old girlfriend who was living with him as his wife and is now pregnant, after her father took him to the police, he suggested it might be because he wasn’t good looking. I asked him how old he was and he told me 21. Looking at him I knew he wasn’t 21. He then confessed to telling the police he was 21 but that he’s actually 34. I told him that if I was the magistrate in his case I wouldn’t have much sympathy on him for lying about his age. He then went on to say he was sick with HIV. I asked him how long he had known he was positive for and he said since last May. I figured that he must have known his status when he made the girl pregnant and he agreed that he did. I asked him why he didn’t use condoms and he replied that the girl behaved like a prostitute and probably already had HIV anyway. Again, it’s difficult to know what to say in this situation. The girl wants the charges against him dropped, but even if he’s released I can’t imagine a happy ending.

Whilst the inmates seemed to be surprisingly frank even when speaking in front of the officers, one telling us that if their heads aren’t shaved short enough they would get a beating, when they spoke to some of the students privately more disturbing stories came out. Shortly after being sent to the prison one inmate had been sick and told the warder that he wasn’t well enough to go and work in the fields, as all inmates are meant to under armed escort. In response the warder kicked him in the genitals. One of his testicles popped and a doctor later told him that the other was so badly damaged that it would also need to be removed, however weeks later he has received no treatment. He now passes blood and pus through his penis and has difficulty sitting because of an intense pain in his stomach. He says that he was due to be released from prison but that the officer who kicked him has prevented this. Whilst the rest of the group were sitting listening to prisoners Saturday had gone for a walk around the prison. With ease he entered the punishment cells. He found two inmates handcuffed and locked in separate cells. One had a heavy wound on his head he got after a beating as a result of trying to escape. Every morning the prisoners on punishment have water poured into their cells and are caned.

We moved on to the women’s prison next door, it was our first time to visit. We showed the wardress at the gate our letter and without a word we were shown into a room, it’s ceiling collapsing in places where bat urine had soaked through the board, and prisoners assembled. 21 came, bringing with them 4 children. They sat down in silence and a wardress and a matron joined us. A while later a thick set woman arrived, a quick look at her led me to whisper o the guy sitting next to me that she must be a murderer. We introduced ourselves and explained the purpose of our visit. She replied saying that she had been in prison on remand for eight years and was the one who gave advice to the other women. She said that the women wouldn’t be speaking to us as they thought we had come to find information to report back to the administration. She explained that last week the Uganda Human Rights Commission had visited and that after the inmates had spoken to them about their conditions they were locked in their cells and caned. We explained we were there to assist the inmates and asked the prison officers to leave, which they did without any argument. We repeated the routine of spreading out throughout the room and listening to individual requests. Some women began crying as they spoke of not knowing what had happened to their children after they were taken into prison or the problems of living with AIDS in prison. One teenage girl had been in prison for three years after her mother took her to the police for being too stubborn. She says that she’s now reformed and seen the error of her past ways. The two headlines I saw plastered to trees as we drove home from the prisons were ‘commissioner of prisons says prison officers to pay torture victims’ and ‘woman gives birth whilst being hanged’. It’s a funny world.