Breathe
M is a deaf woman who has been held in the Neza Bordo prison for three years. She has never been able to hear why she was locked up, nor can she read or write. An NGO got her a hearing aid so that for the first time she can hear the sentence that will set her free.
"Thank you for the braces, now I just hope they declare me innocent," says M, an older woman who has been deprived of her liberty since 2019 in the Nezahualcóyotl Bordo de Xochiaca Penitentiary and Social Reinsertion Center (Centro Penitenciario y de Reinserción Social Nezahualcóyotl Bordo de Xochiaca).
How did M get to jail? There was a fight in his neighborhood.
In the midst of all the commotion a single woman answered yes to the police when asked if she had started it all. But she never actually listened to what she was asked. Nor did she listen to anything the judge asked her, who decided that she was silently guilty and should be transferred to that jail. In reality M, never understood what the authorities told her because she is deaf. No one supported her, nor did the Public Prosecutor's Office notice her face of bewilderment and desperation.
"M's case is an example of how the prison system works. Not only does M not hear, but he also doesn't understand Mexican Sign Language. She also does not know how to read or write and the director told us this story in May and we went out to ask for support to get her the devices that would allow her to listen to the judge who is following her case," Daniela Ancira, one of the founders of La Cana, tells me. This is a civil organization that works with some 270 women deprived of their freedom to help them reintegrate into society through weaving workshops (these amigurumi dolls), sewing, macramé and embroidery, which allows them to learn trades, receive formal income and training to be able to have tools (such as computers, for example) that will help them when they leave prison. " To turn these spaces into places of opportunity and not of punishment" is one of the messages that this organization moves along with kilos of colored yarn in the prisons of Barrientos, Ecatepec and Nezahualcóyotl Sur (in the state of Mexico) in addition to Santa Marta Acatitla, in Mexico City.
"The judge who is now handling the case told us that he could not continue with the case if she did not hear the trial even if she is proven innocent because he cannot let her go either if she did not understand anything that happened," Ancira explains to me.
What they will do for the first time in three years with M is 'judging with a disability perspective', which is required by the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. What does this mean? That everyone needs to be given the necessary tools and support to follow a court case on an equal footing.
According to the National Census of the Federal Penitentiary System 2022, 12,344 women with disabilities are in one of the 319 prisons throughout the country. This is equivalent to 5.6 percent of the total number of persons deprived of liberty (220,420). Between 2020 and 2021, the population with disabilities increased by 3.9 percent.
In this case it was to have a pair of hearing aids that took 31 months to reach his ears.
"Let's hope that now she is free and can continue with this cause without the gap of silence that accompanied her in prison," adds Ancira, "this is the kind of unfair cases we see in the prison system: when outside there is extreme violence in prisons there are a lot of people who should not be locked up."
For the past 10 years, La Cana has not only had its weaving and embroidery workshops (which are very therapeutic) but also provides psychological support. Within mental health, depression, for example, is the leading cause of disability in women.
To this end, the organization has a team of psychologists, a criminologist and lawyers to provide comprehensive support.
"While we have training workshops, we also focus on mental health. You can't talk about social reintegration without touching on the psychological part, from becoming aware of what they did - if they committed a crime - or overcoming the problems they experienced in the past. We focus a lot on gender violence, because many of the women in prison arrive there because of their partners and did not know about the different types of violence that exist, not just physical violence," says the founder of La Cana.
The task of psychological support is not only for those who are in prison but also for those who are released, a follow-up that does not exist in the Mexican penal system.
"It is essential to support them at that precise moment when they are so vulnerable and alone so that they do not fall into delinquency. So that they understand how society changed during the years they were locked up," says Ancira. The support also extends to the children of those who leave prison because many left children behind when they entered prison and left with them as teenagers , and the treatment and authority over them is very difficult.
The "Seguimiento en libertad" program focuses on women who are already out of prison; there are already about 40 women that La Cana 'does not let go' and supports. Many of them continue to produce products for the foundation's online store and in other cases they have been relocated to other companies as secretaries or in the tourism sector.
La Cana has succeeded (almost metaphorically) in teaching these women in prison how to weave, while weaving around them a network of containment that does not leave them more alone than when they entered the prison.
"Our goal is to show that it can be done, that many times they just need the tools to achieve opportunities they never had because women in prisons mostly come from very violent environments," Daniela acknowledges.
And of abandonment. Mrs. M arrived in prison after a lifetime without anyone giving her the opportunity to have hearing aids. She was robbed of the right to go to school, to learn to read and write, to have a job, to know how to defend herself and to know her rights.
She lived without hearing until an unrelated and as yet unclarified event turned her into a delinquent.
And she doesn't even know what is happening today with her life or her future.
Mrs. M is now learning to hear behind bars, so that she can leave them as soon as possible.
This story reminds me of the inscription on one of the walls of the Lecumberri Palace: "in this ungrateful prison, where sadness reigns, crime is not punished, poverty is punished".
@ba_anderson
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