Gaps exist everywhere. Income gap separates the rich from the poor. Access to education separates the literate from illiterate. Availability of food separates the well-fed from the hungry. One gap that is, often overlooked and, particularly alarming is the one that separates women behind bars from those who are free. It can, unequivocally, be said, that the current status of women in Pakistan has not helped the case of those women.
The gap between female prison policy and its implementation is disappointingly evident by the uncomfortable state of women in Pakistani prison cells. With no beds, unclean washrooms, dirty water and the burden of social stigma and hate, these women are being given the treatment that is not only immoral but also illegal.
“Nafrat insaan se nahin, jurm se hae.” (We despise the crime, not the person committing it) is a quote from the Punjab Prisons website (May 2016) which suggests that the philosophy of incarceration employed in Punjab separates the crime from the perpetrator. But has this theoretical approach translated into the ground reality of the prisons in Pakistan? Does the treatment of the female prisoners reflect that they are treated with the respect they deserve as humans? Is there a gap between prison policy and action? Is the crime really hated more than the person?
To answer these questions, it is important to understand the prison system in Pakistan and the state of female prisoners.
Policies governing procedures within the jail facility are published in the Pakistan Prisons Rules 1978. It provides benchmarks for prisoners’ daily routines, jail facilities, provision of legal, medical and educational services, visitation rights and complaint mechanisms. According to World Prison Brief (WPB), in 2019, there were a total of 98 prison establishments. The total prison population was 77,000 as compared to the total capacity of 57,000 prisoners and the prisons were working at 133% capacity.
According to WPB, there were 1200 female prisoners in Pakistan in 2019, constituting 1.6% of the total prison population. The prisoners are classified as either convicted or under-trial. According to a 2011 report from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), 74% of all prisoners, and 68% of female prisoners in Pakistan were under-trial prisoners. Moreover, a fifth of these women had been in jail for over a year, and half had been in jail for over 30 days, which is statutorily the maximum length a person can be detained without a conviction.
On policy and paper, the 1200 Pakistani prisoners are safe, protected and being given their legal rights. However, several local and international reports have given us a closer look at the reality.
Unlawful detention
The first and foremost point of concern is that a large number of pre-trial women are unlawfully detained for an extended period of time due to administrative inefficiency and backlog of cases. According to the Pakistan Prisons Rules, an under-trial prisoner cannot be detained for more than 30 days without a conviction.
However, several logistical and political hurdles prevent this from happening. Firstly, cases are not always considered by the court in chronological order. Instead, the cases of prisoners offering bribes, having strong political backing and/or a high socio-economic status are prioritized. According to The Nation, in 2013, there were over 1.7 million pending cases in Punjab’s district courts, with cases taking between 5 to 20 years before being decided.
Moreover, since the legal literacy of many female prisoners is low, they are unable to access legal services and understand their rights. In a study it was found that 68% of the women in prison were illiterate. This problem is even more significant for those prisoners who don’t have any family or friends support from outside of the prison. For these women filing an appeal at the court is a particularly challenging task.
According to the Prison Rules, under-trial illiterate prisoners should be provided assistance by the government in contacting their legal adviser. If the illiterate prisoners want to write an appeal for their case, then the prison administration must provide assistance in helping them write the appeal.
However, since there is no accountability and check on the prison administration to ensure that the illiterate prisoners get legal assistance, many women prisoners are never able to avail this right and spend many years in prison while being innocent. If and when they have their trial and are proved innocent after a trial, no compensation is provided to them for the inefficiency of the judicial system.
Unsatisfactory Environment
Various reports of female prisons have highlighted the questionable prison environment and the failing of the prison administration to provide basic necessities. In a study by UNODC in 2011 on 9 female prisons across the country, it was found that most jails did not provide beds or mattresses to the prisoners and they were required to either sleep on the floor or arrange the mattresses themselves.
The number of washrooms available ranged from 3 to 4 prisoners per washroom to 60 prisoners per washroom, depending on the size of the prison facility. Only one prison had safe drinking water. The rest of the prisons provided unfiltered tap water to its prisoners.
Children living in prisons with their mothers suffered the most as there were no educational, recreational or medical health facilities for them. Many of these children were raised without the basic necessities essential for growth and development like immunization, and nutritional infant food.
Medical Health
The women in prison suffer from various non-serious as well as terminal illnesses that require medical attention ranging from the common cold and fever to HIV/AIDS and Tuberculosis. Not only are there insufficient numbers of doctors to diagnose these issues but there is also a lack of medical staff, equipment and medicine to treat these patients.
In the UNODC study mentioned earlier, it was found that only 3 out of 9 prisons had female doctors. The rest had male doctors which suggests that the female prisoners are often uncomfortable visiting the on-call male doctors, especially when discussing matters relating to pregnancy or other invasive procedures.
In a study in 2016 on women prisoners in Punjab, it was found that testing services for HIV and other sexually transmitted infections were not available to most inmates and treatment was only provided when the patient showed symptoms.
In an interview, Dr. Iftikhar, a surgeon at Central Jail Peshawar, said “The present health condition of the females’ offenders and the health facilities provided by the government to these prisoners is very desperate and bad. Numerous diseases, especially those which are the result of unsanitary food and populated water consumed by these prisoners are common in them. Similarly, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis etc. are emerging and spreading very rapidly due to the non-availability of proper health care and cure.”
Even though there is very limited data available regarding the nutritional sufficiency of pregnant prisoners, it is obvious from anecdotal evidence that the special needs of pregnant and breastfeeding women are not met in most jails. A former detainee of the Peshawar Central Jail reported that pregnant female detainees were prevented from securing any kind of prenatal vitamin or supplement.
Moreover, it is easy, more than ever, for the prison administration to overlook the mental health of the female prisoners. There is ample evidence that there are numerous cases of deteriorating mental health conditions amongst detainees and how these are conveniently overlooked in policy and action.
In a study conducted at the Adyala District Jail in Rawalpindi, 176 female inmates were interviewed and their mental health was assessed by psychiatrists. They found that Psychiatric illnesses were present in 62.5% of the female inmates; affective disorders were found in 23.43%, of those 19.5% were depressive illnesses followed by stress related disorders (13.28%), neurotic (anxiety related disorders) (10.15%), somatoform disorders (9.37%), psychotic disorders (3.12%) and organic mental disorders (3.12%).
Policy wise, there is inadequate mention of providing mental health care to inmates in the Pakistan Prison Rules, except in cases where a patient suffers from severe psychosis, which is one of the most severe mental disorders that requires urgent medical care. In reality, however, the minimal mental health care offered on paper is non-existent in reality. A report on prisons in Punjab highlights that no systematic services by qualified mental health counsellors were provided in any of the prisons.
Moreover, the Prison Rules mention that prisoners with mental illnesses who may cause danger to themselves or others, should be kept separate from those who do not have any mental illness. Not only was this rule not followed in most prisons, according to the Punjab study, but there was also no way of differentiating the “harmless” patients from the “dangerous” patients as most of the jails did not conduct the initial psychological assessment on the inmates.
There is an endless list of various other concerns over the state of women in prison cells including sexual harassment, unavailability of a complaint mechanism, and lack of accountability of prison officials. The solutions to these problems lie in the gap between policy and action.
The Pakistan Rules must be reviewed, revised and implemented with much more sincerity than the status quo. Only then the prison system of Pakistan may take a step in the right direction and the female prisoners of Pakistan may be treated with the respect that they deserve.
