Priest Deplores Condition Of Children Born To Inmates In Prison
July 30, 2012
By Leadership and AllAfrica.com
The Catholic Chaplain of Kuje and Dukpa Prisons, Abuja, the Rev. Fr. Victor Nyoroh, on Sunday in Abuja condemned the deplorable condition of children born to female inmates serving jail terms.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Nyoroh described the situation where children were left to live in the prison environment with no parental care as ``unfortunate’’.
The priest, who until May was the chaplain of Suleja Prisons in Niger, said the prison had children whose mothers were serving jail terms and lacked opportunities for their proper upbringing.
``If you visit the Suleja Prison, you will see cases of children moving about with no parental control; these children constitute a problem to themselves and others,’’ he said.
He said efforts by some religious groups and a few concerned Nigerians were not enough to improve the living conditions of the children.
``Once in a while, we see religious groups on prison apostolate trying to assist the children by providing clothing and food items; this is very little, considering the enormous problems of these children being left in the prison environment,’’ Nyoroh said.
He urged philanthropists to come to the aid of such children through sponsorship of their education and provision of medical care.
Corroborating Nyoroh’s statement, Mrs Grace Dashiel, the National President, Association of Orphans and Vulnerable Children, said urgent attention should be paid to the vulnerable.
She told NAN that efforts by concerned groups and organisations to change the condition of the children had proved impossible due to a lack of synergy between the Nigerian Prisons Service (NPS) and homes where such children could receive care.
Dashiel said the inability of the prisons service to work with orphanages to accommodate such children deprived them of the right to education and proper health care.
``We are agitating for the government to look beyond orphaned children by considering the plight of children who are born in prisons in the country and are left to roam about without care and attention.’’
According to Dashiel, some children born under such conditions died in the prisons before help from concerned groups could reach them.
She said efforts should be made by the prison authority to inform family members on the condition of the pregnant inmates.
``We are saying that family members of pregnant inmates should be informed of their condition and subsequently the children should be given to the family members to care for them.
``In cases where such families cannot be contacted or refuse responsibility for the children, the prisons should allow interest groups, such as our organisation, to put the children in homes,’’ she said.
Dashiel also condemned situations where some female inmates became pregnant while serving prison terms.
But the spokesman for the prisons service, Mr Kayode Odeyemi, Deputy Superintendent of Prisons, said where a pregnant woman had been sentenced, there was nothing the service could do not to keep her in prison, adding that the law was clear on that.
Odeyemi explained that when such women were delivered of their babies, they were allowed to Bosom feed them for some months before the babies were handed over to relations of the convict subject to their permission.
``It depends on what the prisoner wants. If we ask her and she agrees, we make arrangements for the babies to be cared for by orphanages,’’ noting that the service could not single handedly give the babies away.
``The prisoners have rights that must be respected.’’
Odeyemi denied that female prisoners got pregnant while serving their terms or that there were grown-up children of inmates in the prisons.
``That is not true. It is the figment of imagination of some people,'' he said.
The Minister of Interior, Mr Abba Moro, whose ministry supervises the prisons, had at the 2012 Ministerial Platform to mark the Jonathan administration's one-year in office, also denied that female inmates got pregnant while serving time.
http://www.leadership.ng/nga/articles/31126/2012/07/29/priest_deplores_condition_children_born_inmates_prison.html
http://allafrica.com/stories/201207290417.html
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