What the hell am I doing here!?

Things here are going quite well, on the work side of things anyway. I still have little to do socially, and equally depressing no one to do anything with anyway! I went to see an English friend who’s running an NGO about an hour and a half away and we were pressed trying to find interesting or fun things to do! Since coming back from Nepal I’ve been busying myself with work though, and have had only 2 days off in the past month, but that’s ok. It’s my choice, as my entire schedule is. I’m here for work, and enjoy this side of my time in India, so don’t mind.

The reason I write today is to tell you a bit about what I’m up to now, the new organisations I’m working for, and the projects I’m trying to get going.

If you’ve read this before or been in contact with me, you may know that I am trying to initiate a project for female prisoners and their dependents inside as well as outside the prison. In India children until the age of 6 stay with their inside the jail if there is no one willing to care for them outside. There are children that have beenborn in jail, as well as those in jail since such a young age that they don’t remember what it looks like outside the high prison walls. They’ve never seen a typical street scene or a man, never ridden on a bus, never been into a shop, etc. They are locked in the cells with their mothers from 7pm until 7am. There is little for mothers or children to do.

Following a meeting with the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, a Christian community of brothers engaged in social work (and no evangelism) I learnt that they have a programme which currently supports some 10,000 children across the 4 southern states (Tamil Nadu, Kerela, Karnatika and Andra Pradesh) who would be otherwise unable to study due to their family’s poor income situation. They have a programme for children of life convicts, but after I met them they told me they would be happy to support children of any convict, as typically convicts come from the poorer sections of society. Those with money are able to buy their way out of prison, or send someone else to do their time!

A few weeks ago I went for a meeting in a place called Thiruvanelli, almost in the tip of India to meet the director of the child support programme. Whilst I was there they also arranged for me to meet 4 women who previously served time at Tritchy’s female prison. From these 4 women only one woman was actually guilty, the others had been framed. In India you have to remain in prison under the same conditions as the convicted women until you’re actually sentenced. It can take months, and even years before you are able to see a judge. I have heard of cases where the woman has spent longer in jail waiting to be sentenced than the sentence of conviction actually have been. If this is the case and she is found not guilty there is no compensation and no one says sorry to her.

Just to tell you a little of the stories I heard from the 4 women I met:

The first, Nagomi was accused of killing her baby daughter, and served 3 months whilst waiting to be sentenced. She was found not guilty. What actually happened was that she delivered her baby a month prematurely in her village home. She bled until she was unconscious and was taken to a local hospital. From there she found herself being taken to prison. Her husband and in-laws used to constantly abuse and torture her as they said she didn’t give them enough dowry (gifts from a woman’s family to her husband) and they demanded more. Her husband was a known tyrant in the village and had many enemies. A neighbour wanting to punish or get revenge on the family for something the husband earlier done informed the police that the family killed the baby girl. The couple were arrested along with Nagomi’s parents who were present at the birth. Her parents and husband were released after one month, but Nagomi and her 4 year old son remained in prison. After she was released she managed to divorce her husband and now lives with her own parents. Others in the village no longer speak to her, and you can tell from talking to her she is quite psychologically scarred. She works as a beedi (small cigarette made from leaves) roller for just Rs. 10 (13p) per 8 hour day. She also found out since being released that her husband killed his first wife, but got away with it as he claimed she had a cooking accident, rather than claiming the truth which is he poured a bottle of kerosene on her and set her alight!

The 2nd woman I met, Rani, was falsely accused of prostitution at the age of 20. Rani and a friend were visiting a male friend in his home. His parents were out. The police were called to the neighbourhood for a village disturbance and went knocking on every door. When they found the 2 women unaccompanied in the house they were instantly arrested on charges of prostitution. Rani and her friend were first taken to a local jail. Her friend was released a few days later when her family paid for her release. Rani’s family however couldn’t pay for this, and so Rani spent one month in the local jail, in the female cell, mostly alone, being sexually harassed by the prison guards most nights. When she was in prison her father and brother came to visit her. Her brother was very angry that she had been so stupid and careless and shouted at her. Upon her release after being found not guilty, she returned to her father’s home where her brother had prepared a poison for her and tried to force her to drink it, believing her death would be the only way to restore the family’s dignity and honour. Rani refused to drink it, and instead took a severe beating from her brother. She still lives in the family home, but still 6 years on after her release the villagers and her family, apart from her Dad don’t talk to her. She is worried as her Dad is getting old and she knows after he dies she will have no place to go after she is booted out of home. She has no job and no skills and still gets hassled from the police, trying to arrest her for crimes she hasn’t committed, just so she will pay them to leave her alone.

The 3rd woman, Mariama, was convicted of murdering her husband. She had been having problems with her husband for many years, he was lazy and a drunk and would often beat her. It was known to all that they had problems, which is why after he was murdered by his own family, as he had property rights they wanted for themselves, they were able to put the blame on his wife. The murdering family paid the police to frame and convict Mariama. At first when she was arrested and in the police station she refused to admit to something that wasn’t true, but in the end she could no longer bear the torture inflicted on her by the police. To get a confession from her they would beat her, spoil her food and push needles under her nails. She got 12 years, of which she served 6.

The 4th woman, Kannabodi, comes from a very poor village, out of the 4 woman she is the poorest. Her house doesn’t even have proper walls, they are just one foot tall and made of mud and dung. She was convicted of making and selling arak (local liquor) illegally. She was convicted, but upon her release did it again, as she had no other way of making money. In all she has been to prison more than 10 times, and the longest time she served as 5 months. She hasn’t now been for more than 10 years as the judge told the police to stop arresting her for this.

The reason why I wanted to meet released prisoners was to get their opinion of how best an NGO could have helped them whilst they were in prison and upon their release. However, it became apparent to us that NGO intervention is still needed many years after their release. Also the women were not able to answer my questions properly. These are semiliterate, uneducated village women, who have never had any contact or don’t even know what an NGO is. When asked the open question of how did they think an NGO could best help they were unable to answer as the idea of someone helping them was so foreign!

So for this prison project I am linking the Brothers of the Sacred Heart, using their name to obtain funds, and also some convent sisters, who have experience with female prisoners in counselling, and also another organisation, Tamil Nadu Depressed Women Welfare Society (TNDWWS). We had many ideas for projects to run in side the jail as well as outside. However, last week I heard of a local NGO currently working in the prison, so I arranged a meeting with them to see what they were already doing, as there was no point to duplicate work. They are called Sevai, and are actually doing quite a lot. I don’t know about how effective their programmes are though, and I got the impression they didn’t want anyone else in their territory. Besides, when I met with the prison’s Inspector General the following day, she basically said that all things in the prison were fine, and that it wasn’t necessary for more NGO intervention. This differed greatly to what I heard from the 4 released women, who told me about the lack of water, sanitation and personal hygiene, about not having any soap or change of clothes for 3 months. All woman also made negative comments about the food when asked about the worst aspects of being inside, they said it was like poison, so disgusting that they often preferred to go without.

The Inspector General did agree to a few of our programmes. I have arranged that TNDWWS who have experience with HIV/AIDS education and working with prostitutes (a common crime of the convicted women) be allowed access into the prison every 3 months to hold a one day work shop on STDs, HIV/AIDS and safe sex. This is a really cheap programme which I will be funding from the donations from friends an family. Each training session will only cost the travel expenses (£2.30) for TNDWWS staff as all materials and condoms are provided free by the Tamil Nadu State AIDS Control Agency. Also we found an experienced retired teacher who is willing to go to the jail every week to give classes on yoga, meditation and counselling. It will be through her, Mrs Bala that we hope to be able to find information about where the released women are, as the prison officials refused to release us any lists. The yoga, meditation and counselling programme will also be very cheap, it’ll cost about £1 each day she goes, which will be 2 to 3 times a week.

We plan for a few long term projects in addition to the above 2. We have plans for a half-way home for released women unable to go back home. We are thinking to buy a farm house where the women will live and work together, in support of each other, giving support and solidarity to each other. It will be a safe place for them for rehabilitation and reintegration. They will be taught vocational skills which will enable to generate income, which will be spent for their own needs, as well as feed back into the running of the house. They will also maintain a vegetable garden, and have a chicken farm. One woman will be employed to live there and serve as the ‘mother” and counsellor. This of course will cost more than we currently have funds for, but I am hoping to get funding from either a Christian agency (who are prone to fund other Christian organisations, and hopefully programmes involving convicts and prostitutes) but I know it will takes 6+ months before we are able to get anything, if we’re successful at all.

We also hope to find as many released prisoners as possible, which is difficult as there are only 2 female prisons in the state, so prisoners can come from a 500km area, and as travel is so slow here, about 50km an hour, it can take ages to reach all these women. Our intention is to arrange the women into district clusters and give them micro-loans for them to start their own businesses. We also will run a survey to se what their other needs are. It will also serve as a support network. I’m trying to get training from a village handicraft organisation in Chennai which has links overseas, plus shops in Chennai to sell the products. Most of the things village groups make are a bit cheap and tacky, and most groups make the same thing. I hope to be able to get the women to do something a bit more unique and profitable. Hopefully once Mrs Bala is able to give us information on where some released prisoners are, the network and information will quickly snowball.


Another programme I will be trying to get money for, with TNDWWS will be an anti-trafficking grant. Yesterday I met with a commercial sex worker (CSW/prostitute) who used to be a broker as well as a hooker. She was very open and informative with me, and answered every one of my questions during our hour interview. She now works for TNDWWS and has left her old life. Anyway, she explained that there are 2 types of prostitutes, those that are willing, and those that are forced. For those that are willing we will try and give them safety education, and for those that are unwilling we will try to rescue them, by buying them from their pimps/brokers. This will be very difficult, and may get TNDWWS staff in trouble. I don’t know whether they really have the capacity or organisation to do this. It will require some undercover work and total dedication, and I just don’t know if they’re up to it. We will try and get word out to the CSW network there’s an organisation they can contact if they want help. We may be able to combine the farm house with the house for trafficked women, but don’t know whether the prisoners would be up for this. There is a stigma against both groups, and they may hold a stigma against each other.

I spoke to TNDWWS today and they said we can do this project, but we will have to get female police and police inspectors involved. We also will have to find brokers who are against trafficking. It’ll be a tough project, but ultimately worth it.

Also I was supposed to be going back to Kodaikanal this week, but UK friend Lesley will be in Pondicherry before she goes back to the UK at the end of the week, so have put it off until next week. In Kodai a tribal organisation I am working for needs help with grant seeking for 2 projects, one is for housing for people living in tents, the other is for productive tree plantation. I also will try my hand at amateur documentary making to try and make a grant seeking promotional video. I don’t even have a proper video camera to use, so will be using the movie mode on my normal digital camera! The organisation is called Action for Community Transformation (ACT) India Foundation. They do great work with the 26 tribal villages in the Palani hills. These tribals are the lowest in Indian society, actually they are so low, they aren’t really in it. Anyone above the age of 20 would generally be uneducated, those that are younger typically only stay in school until they are 8. They have a life expectancy of just 45 years, and until 2generations ago lived in the thick of the forest in make shift homes as hunter gatherers. Their homes are little better now, and they eat a little more than what they find in the forest, but they remain malnourished, exploited, without skills, are completely illiterate and own no land or houses. They live in houses they’ve made themselves from sticks, banana leaves and any waste materials, such as sand/cement bags, or scraps of plastic.

Today I heard from a work colleague he may be going to Sri Lanka to conduct a study on Tamil tsunami victims. He invited me to go with him, so am waiting to hear if that will be possible. If we do, we’ll go for 45 days from the middle of May.

I am thinking about coming home in August, before the start of my (hopeful) masters in September. I still haven’t heard whether I have definitely got in, but only need to give a week’s notice if I want to defer for a year. Thing is, if these projects really start I think I may not want to leave, but at the same time am getting pretty tired of India and Indians! I don’t know what I’ll do if I don’t get on the course this year. I guess I should stay, but will return to the UK for a few months over the summer anyway. I’m finding out whether I can hang onto the house for a little longer, or else I’ll have to crash at various people’s places until I go back to England.

So this is news of my work and projects. It probably sounds a lot more impressive and exciting than it actually is. Things are slow to happen and there are always many obstacles in the way.

I am currently trying to register my own NGO, to be called HoldingHands International, but haven’t heard back from the Charity Commission yet. But you can be assured I’ll contact you when/if it goes ahead.

If you have managed to get this far, do me a favour and leave a comment as I don’t know how many people are actually reading this. It may be better to stop blogging and return to e-mails again. I think because I blog at random times people who may be interested don’t check anyway. So let me know whether you think I should keep this going or not.

If you want a copy of the prisoner profiles of interview with the CSW for your own interest you can e-mail me.

So thank you to those of you that have taken the time to read all of this. I hope you enoy reading about what I do.

Until next time be good, be happy, work hard and play harder
Love Ruth