Women Resisting: Formerly Incarcerated Women Organize to Bring Down the Bars
摘要
Women’s incarceration in Latin America has grown exponentially over the last two decades. While more men than women are in prison, incarceration has a disproportionate impact on women, with devastating consequences for their families and children. Upon release from prison, they confront a myriad of obstacles in rebuilding their lives. Yet women coming out of prison, long invisible, are now organizing and fighting for their rights. A new movement of formerly incarcerated women is working collectively to build solidarity, change the narrative, confront stigma and discrimination, and advocate for structural transformative change. In the face of governments’ failure to provide meaningful support to women coming out of prison, organizations of formerly incarcerated women are the ones stepping up to fill the void, despite very limited resources. This chapter is based on interviews with these women, who recount in their own words the challenges they have faced and their on-the-ground experiences helping women in and coming out of prison in five Latin American countries: Mexico, El Salvador, Brazil, Argentina and Colombia. In 2017 and 2018, women coming out of prison began meeting and some then went on to form their own organizations. Today, they are advocating for redirecting resources out of criminal legal systems and into policies and programs that provide resources to communities to promote the health and well-being of women and children and allow all people to live with dignity.