Gender, expulsion, poverty, and incarcerated women/ Marzieh Mohabbi
The life of incarcerated women is more than that of free women, subject to gender discrimination. Women who are deprived and homeless are thrown into the trap of a criminal life, and are also subject to removal and expulsion. The social system condemns them to a useless surplus and exiles them, depriving them of their right to be human.
As women who are imprisoned under the label of “ordinary prisoner” enter the prison system, they remain silent and invisible, and their exclusion prevents society from paying attention to their struggles. In this context, we will briefly examine the effects of gender, poverty, and exclusion in their lives.
Gender and Women in Prison.
The prison exacerbates all the deprivations and hardships that are imposed on women by their gender. A female prisoner is not only confined within the walls of the prison and subjected to harsh restrictions in all aspects of her silent life, but from the moment she enters the prison, her gender also creates another impenetrable wall among the concrete walls of the prison. In addition to being punished for her crime, she is also punished for being a woman and having the audacity to step into the realm of male criminal behavior. In every moment of a female prisoner’s presence in the judicial and prison system, all elements of this system remind her that she is a combination of “woman” and “criminal” and therefore more deserving of humiliation, insult, and oppression than male criminals.
The prison system, far more than men, turns the female body into a bed for the production of sin and an impure and malicious entity, erasing all symbols of human identity one by one in a fanatical onslaught of ideological teachings. It creates a corpse out of the human who enters the prison, always wearing a veil and headscarf between closed doors, obligated to perform religious rituals with precision, having forgotten themselves.
Female prisoners, in a predetermined structure, are forced to forget their opposing religious beliefs to those of the prison guards, and their beliefs and way of life are changed, turning them into wandering souls carrying the heavy burden of their shameful condemnation.
In addition to all of this, the criminal policy of the Islamic Republic’s security forces, which is based on the suppression of criminals and zero tolerance, and has never been willing to join the powerful global movement of the “harmless criminal” and “restorative justice” policies, inflicts the greatest harm on women. Many ordinary women are sentenced to imprisonment for crimes that in other judicial systems would be considered trivial, such as enduring six months in prison for stealing a few cans of powdered milk for a hungry child, or stealing a meal and the like. However, these sentences destroy women’s lives and the irreparable consequences of it never go away.
Many women in prison have been forced to commit crimes through the influence of a man. Being a woman and being under gender domination contributes to their criminality. Fathers, brothers, husbands, and sexual partners, especially in drug-related crimes and many cases of intentional murder, force women to participate in the crime or coerce them into confessing against themselves with false promises or threats and intimidation.
B- Social exclusion.
The meeting also throws another chain of gender order around the neck of the imprisoned woman and creates an impenetrable double wall around her. Families often reject imprisoned women, leaving their spouses abandoned and depriving them of seeing their children. In many cases, families of imprisoned women join in the mistreatment and participate in the rejection, humiliation, and exclusion of the imprisoned woman in order to escape the shame of others. Many imprisoned women spend years in longing for a visit. For them, being called from the prison loudspeakers on visiting day is a dream, and being perpetually deprived of it is a defeat in front of other prisoners.
Social exclusion aims to target the identity of the prisoner and break them apart. It throws them into the trap of leaders of drug cartels and corruption, trapping them in a cycle of oppression and crime.
Poverty.
Women’s economic ties have been severed by their presence in prison, and they are being dragged into destructive poverty.
Women in society are generally poorer than men, and this is evident in the harsh conditions of prisons. They are unable to hire lawyers because they do not have money, and as a result, their right to defense is lost.
In most cases, suspects are released on bail or bond before a final conviction is issued, and during this time, they have the opportunity to consult with a lawyer, obtain the consent of the complainant, and manage their family and financial affairs. However, poverty, which affects many incarcerated women or their social ostracism, prevents them from securing bail or even finding a guarantor, and causes them to remain in temporary detention.
The concept of open and semi-open prisons, which is a common method of modern identity reconstruction for prisoners, never includes women prisoners. In many cases, they are unable to take furloughs because they are rejected by their families and no one is willing to provide bail for them, or their poverty is such that they cannot afford bail. Poverty and rejection of women prisoners also make it impossible for them to benefit from conditional release regulations due to their inability to provide bail. Poverty prevents women prisoners from being able to pay the blood money and fines they have been sentenced to, resulting in them remaining in prison.
In women’s prisons, usually the oppression of the young, poor, rural, and illiterate prisoners is imposed by the older and more experienced prisoners, as well as the leaders of corrupt gangs, drug dealers, and wealthy financial prisoners – in short, all the tools of power in the closed space of the prison. They are turned into servants and forced to fulfill the colorful demands of these new masters day and night.
“Women prisoners and the longing for a child.”
One of the tragic aspects of women’s lives in prison is their relationship with their children. The prison system tries to convince them that they are not worthy of caring for or even seeing their children, and uses all mechanisms of identity suppression to suppress the mother as well. A woman prisoner’s child is the last thing that connects her to the world, life, and hope, but family rejection often prevents them from seeing their children and sometimes years go by without any news or contact with their child. However, women have the right to keep their children with them if they are born in prison or if the mother is sentenced to less than two years. These children spend their sad lives in the hallways or on a bed in the middle of the three-tiered beds placed in each of the four corners of the cells. The cell for women with children is usually separate. A group of mothers and children under two years old live in a regular room, on three-tiered beds, each designated for women and
In this way, gender and its inevitable consequences, namely female poverty, expulsion and deprivation, not only make women’s prisons the center of implementation of criminal policies and severe punishments, but also cast a shadow over the walls of your prisons in another way.
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Addiction Childbirth in prison Gender discrimination 2 Marzieh Mohabbi Mothers of prisoners Ordinary prisoners Paragraph peace line Peace Treaty 158 Pregnancy in prison Prisoners of the prison. Prisoners of the prison. Social exclusion Women Prisoners Women's prison 2 ماهنامه خط صلح