The sad reality of babies born behind bars
One of the sad aspects of correctional facilities across South Africa is that many babies are born and grow up behind bars while their mothers serve their sentences.
POLOKWANE – The Polokwane Correctional Services is no exception and currently there are three babies growing up in the cells with their mothers.
This subject was touched on during the recent Breakfast Behind Bars media meeting at the Polokwane Correctional Services and to help these mothers and their babies a special cell has been fitted with a microwave oven so the mothers can warm up milk for the babies and special beds for the babies to sleep with their mothers at night.
There are also small cribs placed next to the beds of the mothers in the cell to make sure that mother and baby can sleep close together and the mother can be there when she is needed.
Mothers are also given posters in the cells to help them understand the importance of playing with babies and keeping them clean for the first year they spend with them.
These posters also help them understand how they can reconnect with their babies after they have served their sentence.
Department of Correctional Services Spokesperson, Zandile Mabunda, told Review babies born while their mothers are serving their sentence are kept with their mothers for two years and then the families are contacted to take the babies.
“If there is no family and the mother still needs to be in our facility, the baby will be moved to a place of safety in the city that can take care of the baby until their mother is released,” she explained.
She added it is a sad fact that children are born in a correctional facility. Mothers are incarcerated because they are in the country illegally or guilty of a crime and spend up to three years in the correctional services. Sometimes the mothers are pregnant when they are incarcerated so they have to give birth while serving their sentence. When the time comes they are transported to hospital for the birth after which they return to the correctional services.
“The correctional services has a good relationship with government hospitals to make sure the babies and mothers get the care they need and medical attention to ensure that aside from them being in a facility like the correctional services, they are happy and healthy,” Mabunda said.
