Convict moms’ chief worry is leaving prison
IT LOOKS like your typical suburban home – a large single-storey house, a white picket fence, a playground with jungle gyms and a garden, kitchen and shared bedrooms.
But this is the home, for now, of eight female convicts, living in relative comfort with their babies.
On Friday, we went inside Pollsmoor’s special Baby Mother Unit, a few streets away from the maximum-security prison, to see how they would be spending Mother’s Day.
The women seemed happy and welcoming of outsiders into their space.
They spoke of their plans for Mother’s Day and how they would be spending the short time left with their babies before sending them away to family “on the outside”.
Under South African law, children can stay in prison with their mothers until the age of 2.
Until 2008, children were allowed to stay in prison until the age of 5, but research showed that it affected their early development.
The mothers have the option to either send the child to their family or place them into the system once the time is up.
The Baby Mother Unit houses eight children, providing educational and emotional support from specially-trained staff.
Pollsmoor is the only prison in South Africa that has a space of this kind.
Talking to the mothers in the creche, the topic of Mother’s Day brought tears of joy to their eyes.
Rochelle Gertze, 30, is a mother of two who is with her 10-month-old baby girl, Charmelle-quinee Dewee .
Gertze’s three-year-old son is with her mother in Somerset West.
“I am in for shoplifting,” Gertze said. “I was caught stealing. I was unemployed and needed to provide for my sevenweek-old baby.”
She says she often wonders what life will be like for her baby girl when she is released from prison.
“Being in prison is different from being outside. I don’t have to worry about anything here – I just have to show my child love.”
Prison officials said that some of the mothers who had been released from prison wanted to return with their babies to the unit because they could not provide for their babies “on the outside”.