A TOTAL of 131 females have been booked in at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison five months after President Robert Mugabe emptied female prisons in an amnesty, leaving only three death row inmates.
BY VENERANDA LANGA
Addressing MPs from the Parliament Warriors Sports Club at Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison yesterday, Zimbabwe Prisons and Correctional Services (ZPCS) deputy officer commanding Harare, Assistant Commissioner Elizabeth Banda, said the new female inmates were jailed for crimes including murder, theft and fraud.
“The female section can house up to 320 inmates, but currently, there are 131 prisoners because of the Presidential amnesty,” she said.
“The main challenge that we experience at the female prison is lack of ambulances to ferry sick prisoners to hospitals, especially those in labour. Some of the women are arrested while pregnant and give birth while serving their sentences, resulting in babies being incarcerated with their mothers.”
Female prisoners, who spoke to NewsDay Weekender, said they were provided with sanitary wear, but complained of lack of underwear.
Naume Mutenje, who is serving a 20-year jail term for murder, said she was imprisoned while five months pregnant, and her baby was now growing up in the prison environment.
“While the children are fed and get mealie-meal porridge, they do not get nutritious meals like those outside jails. They grow up in an abnormal environment, where they always see women naked in the prison while changing clothes. It is not normal because they do not get used to an environment with men,” she said.
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Banda said at nine months, the children in prisons are taken to creches within the prison.
Leader of the MPs’ delegation, Trevor Saruwaka, said it was important for legislators to interact with prisoners through games as part of the rehabilitation process, adding other organisations should follow suit.
Male prisoners were elated that tomorrow, they would play a football match against MPs.
One of the inmates, Aggripah Guti, is reportedly being eyed by Dynamos Football Club.
Coach for the prison team, officer Tichaona Masvimbo, said the inmates were able to take instructions and behave normally despite their incarceration.
Zimbabwe’s prisons have a capacity to hold 13 000 prisoners, but presently there are 16 091 inmates, resulting in overcrowding.
At the female prison, 28 inmates are foreigners — five from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Malawi (20), Burundi (1), Mozambique (1) and South Africa (1).
While Malawi was facilitating repatriation of its nationals after serving their sentences, DRC prisoners were said to prefer remaining in Zimbabwe to going returning to their country.
