Behind Closed Doors: The Condition of Female Inmates in Vakilabad Prison
One of the serious deficiencies of the Iranian judicial system is the neglect of children in decision-making, legislation, and implementation processes. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the recommendations of child rights experts and activists, children should play a central role in decision-making and execution.
This report examines the condition of children and their mothers in the Central Prison of Mashhad, or Vakilabad Prison in Khorasan Razavi Province in northeastern Iran. Pregnant women, children, and their mothers are held in Ward 4 of Vakilabad Prison, known as “Ershad 2.”
Conditions for Pregnant Women and Children
Many women become pregnant in prison during conjugal visits with their husbands, and their children are born in prison. Some children are the result of rape, and their mothers, unable to prove the assault and lacking financial resources to hire a lawyer, are imprisoned for adultery and even face the threat of stoning.
Children accompanying their imprisoned mothers or born in prison grow up in unsafe environments without access to proper education. Over twenty young children, without adequate clothing or footwear, wander in the open air or on dirty carpets in the section for pregnant women and children at Vakilabad Prison in Mashhad. They spend most of their time in cramped, suffocating, and overcrowded rooms, eating low-quality prison food and lacking nutritional supplements due to their mothers’ economic conditions.
Sanitary Conditions and Living Space
Ward 4 of the women’s ward in Vakilabad Prison consists of a corridor and six rooms with shared sanitary facilities. The rooms are cramped and stuffy, housing mothers, children, and pregnant women in poor conditions. The stale and suffocating air in the rooms, particularly bothersome for the children, exacerbates the already harsh living environment.
Observations indicate that between 20 to 30 children and their mothers, along with pregnant women, are confined in this section of Vakilabad Prison. The young children lack adequate recreational and educational facilities, spending their time in a restricted area and facing difficulties in obtaining warm clothes and shoes.
There is no daycare facility in this prison and children are only kept near their mothers’ beds.
Separation of Children from Imprisoned Mothers
Article 523 of the Code of Criminal Procedure prohibits separating children from their imprisoned mothers until the age of two. Decisions on keeping children up to the age of six in prison are made by the classification council of each prison. After reaching the legal age for staying in prison, children without families outside are transferred to welfare organizations.
Children reaching the age of two are separated from their mother. The child’s fate after being handed over to the welfare organization remains uncertain. In many cases, mothers have no idea how to find their children after being released from prison.
The Iranian regime’s judicial and legal system is not the only entity that acts violently against imprisoned women, mothers, and their children. The lack of a supportive system and the existence of misogynistic laws also pave the way for further harm to women through family and society.
The rejection of imprisoned women by their families, being abandoned by their husbands, and permanently losing their lives and children is an experience shared by a group of incarcerated women. In one case, a woman who was released after six months in prison for stealing a package of macaroni and tomato paste found that she had neither a home, nor children, nor a life left for her.
