---

---

Nigeria: Policemen Make Us Pregnant in Detention

Victor Ahiuma Young

15 November 2008

---

To this end, many children born by the inmates are largely unclaimed, and the women, though some know the fathers of their kids, many of them do not.

Saturday Vanguard discovered this during a visit to the nation's No 1 prison at Apapa, the Kirikiri Maximum Prisons in Lagos State.

Wardresses and female prisoners themselves confirmed to Saturday Vanguard that policemen are fathers of more than 80 per cent of pregnancies at the prison.

However, our investigations showed that the female section of the Kirikiri Prisons Lagos, accommodates about145 inmates. Here, as most prisons in Nigeria, awaiting trial inmates top the list, with over 80 percent of the inmates population.

There are those serving various jail terms, including one that is serving life jail term. There are not less than five condemned inmates in the Female Prisons at the Kirikiri Prisons.

The prison harbours about 10 nursing mothers, over15 expectant mothers and over 10 inmates living with HIV/AIDS virus in the female section of the Kirikiri Prisons.

According to Saturday Vanguard's investigation, while seven of the inmates were delivered of the babies in the prisons at the time of this report, three brought their babies to the prisons.

Saturday Vanguard's findings also revealed the 15 expectant mothers, who officials of the Kirikiri female Prison have tested and confirmed, are in various stages of development. While four of the nursing mothers whose babies are still very young- not more than three months- are in one room under watched by prison's medical staff, others who babies are older stay in normal cells.

Investigation revealed that though quite a number of both the nursing mothers and the expectant mothers are either married or know the fathers to their babies, many others cannot.

The crimes of the women range from murder, manslaughter, armed robbery to stealing. A senior wardress who spoke on condition anonymity told Saturday Vanguard, "as we speak, I can tell you that we have 10 nursing mothers. While seven put to bed in the prison, three came to the prison with their babies.

Also, there over 15 expectant mothers who have been tested and confirmed as expectant mothers "

For those who can hardly identify either the fathers of their babies, investigation revealed that while many of them are street ladies, some claimed un-identified policemen put them in the family way.

One of them said, "In the night, some policemen on night duties would be telling us to allow them to have some rounds of sex with us.

They would be telling us that in the morning, they would help us so that we will be free. We have no choice other than to give hoping that they would help us to be let off the hook in the morning. That is how some of us got this."

A wardress in the female prison told Saturday Vanguard that there is no doubt that some of the inmates were actually impregnated by some unscrupulous policemen.

"I can tell you that there is no doubt that some dubious police do get some of these girls impregnated because some of them that we interviewed told us gory tales of their encounter with some of these policemen in the night.

"When the girls are brought to the prisons, by the time we are searching them, we will be seeing different kind of nonsense in their body. That is, you will see sperms inside them. When we ask them, they would say it is the police people. Some of them would tell us that after having rounds of sex with them, the policemen would tell them to reduce their ages on the ground that by the time they reduce their ages to reflect under-age or minors, it would be easier for them (police) to help so that they would not be sent to the prisons.

"Often times, girls fall victims to this and you see girls who are adult would come to the prisons claiming under-age. When we start interviewing them, they would say they are 16 or lesser years old.

When we want to reject them, they would be begging that they would not want to go back to the Police station because they would not want to experience police molestations and things like that."

According to the source, the police connections is not recorded because "it is not our responsibility unless the inmates complain officially and to higher authorities. The information we record include their names, the day they were brought to the prisons, the day their warrants were signed, the name of the Judge that presided over their cases and the day they would leave the prisons in addition to their age.

These information are what the information sheet are meant to answer and only those answers are recorded. Any other thing outside these are not recorded because there are no provision for them."

The wardresses went on to say that when the women come, they would ask them whether they have anything with the police.

"Because experience has taught us, when the policemen that brought them had gone, some would start complaining that they had so, so and so things with certain police officer or officers. Because of that we decided to be asking them whether they have any unclaimed property or item with the police before the police officers that brought them leave."

"There was another case about two and half years ago. The moment she was told that she is pregnant, she started saying, it is the police people, it is the police people. When she eventually put to bed, she had wanted to kill the child but, the authorities detailed people to watch and monitor her movement before left about two years ago."

Collaborating her colleague, another Wardress said: "Once the judge has passed his or her sentence on the inmate to serve jail term, we always look out for the date the inmate was sentenced to make sure it corresponds with the date she was brought to the prisons.

When we discover discrepancy in the date sentenced and the date the inmate was brought in, we would ask the police officer or officers that brought the inmate. Often times, some of them would say by the time the judgement was passed, it was too late to bring the inmate to prisons or that there was no vehicle to bring the inmate on that day. When we ask where did they take the inmate at the end of the day, the police would be saying one story to another. You hear something like we took her to hotel, back to the police station or things like that.

Meanwhile, not less than female 10 inmates are living with HIV/AIDS, in Kirikiri, while cases of malarial typhoid, typhoid, Skin diseases like rashes, scabies In fact, report has it that two inmates died of scabies not so long ago.

According to Saturday Vanguard's finding, although the prison authorities are doing their best to address the medical needs of the inmates, the female prison is presently suffering from lack of delivery room and shortage of anti malaria drugs because of its prevalence.

According a wardress, "for example, the nursing mothers attend clinic for their ante-natal care. People bring things like baby things for them. When they are here, some of them get abandoned by their relatives. It is only some of religious group like the Redeemed Church, Catholic, Anglican and so on in addition to some Muslim group that come to look after them. They bring food stuff, clothes and other things for them. Some wealthy individuals also bring things for them."

Read comments. Write your own.

---