It was in a cell that Ilda Nascimento discovered she was pregnant with her third child. In 2010, the woman who was then a single mother of two daughters had just been arrested a second time for drug trafficking. Under police escort, she gave birth to João Victor, gave birth to him and cared for him in Carandiru for eight months. Then he saw his baby walk through the doors of São Paulo.
Family separation is at the heart of the drama of the female prison population, which has quintupled over the last 24 years in Brazil, according to the latest edition of the Global List of Female Incarcerations, from the Institute for Criminal and Judicial Policy Research (ICPR), associated with the University of London.
“The greatest inner suffering is that of the woman who finds herself without her children, because many prisoners are mothers,” says Ilda, 46, after ten years of detention. “I miss you all the time.”
With around 50,000 women detained by the state – including in closed regimes, other regimes or of a provisional nature – the country is the third country with the highest number of women detained, behind the United States (nearly 175,000) and China (at least 145,000).
According to Senappen (National Secretariat of Penal Policies), Brazil has nearly 32,000 women in physical cells, including 195 pregnant women and 91 breastfeeding women. In 2023, there were 27 thousand.
Children in prison
Currently, there are 90 children imprisoned with their mothers in Brazil, all with a maximum of one year to live before being removed from maternal contact. As happened with João Victor.
Under the care of his grandmother, he spent his early childhood thinking he was visiting his mother at work. “One day he told me: ‘I know it’s prison, because they lock you up when I leave,’” Ilda says. Today, far from drugs, she travels around São Paulo on a motorbike to make deliveries. “He was part of this story.”
It was not until the age of seven that it was Ilda’s turn to leave prison, in 2017. The São Paulo native’s eldest daughters, who saw her arrested for the first time at the ages of 3 and 7, were then adults.
The following year, the STF (Federal Supreme Court) would grant collective habeas corpus to all pregnant women or mothers of children up to 12 years old or disabled people in pre-trial detention. The decision would benefit at least 3,500 women in two consecutive years, according to a survey by the g1 portal, in 16 states and the Federal District.
War on drugs
Combined with poverty, inequality and difficulties in accessing justice, the war on drugs has led to the mass incarceration of women in the country and around the world.
“Since the 2000s, we have seen the number of women in prison around the world increase at a rate three times faster than the number of men in prison,” says Catherine Heard, director of the ICRP’s global prison research programme. The initiative manages the World Prison Summary database, which tracks statistics on the global prison population.
Experts say the 2006 drug law led to mass criminalization of black, poor and marginalized people, removing prison sentences for drug use and toughening penalties for drug trafficking. With blurred boundaries to distinguish users from traffickers, the result was a broad definition of trafficking crimes. The law did not define quantities of drugs intended for personal use or commercial purposes.
“The criminal system does not reach large criminal organizations, but rather women who occupy lower positions in the sales chain,” explains Helen Baum, specialist in the Justice Without Walls program at the Instituto Terra, Trabalho e Cidadania. She is also a prison survivor. “In Brazil, the imprisonment of women only exists because of drug policy,” he adds.
The ICRP’s Heard says Brazil’s skyrocketing female prison population is also a consequence of “the general failure to develop an alternative to prison time.”
Among those listed by the ICRP, the countries where the female prison population has increased the most since 2000 also include Guatemala (six times), El Salvador (seven times), Indonesia (seven times) and Cambodia (nine times).
Lack of basic items
Around one in three Brazilian women in physical cells are in the state of São Paulo. According to a 2018 study published by Ipea (Institute for Applied Economic Research), the years following the drug law saw an increase in criminal charges for trafficking, to the detriment of consumption, in the surroundings of Cracolândia, in São Paulo.
This was the case for Helen, when she resided in the icon of drug consumption in Brazil. Arrested for drug trafficking in 2013, she was separated from her son, then aged 15, for three years. She preferred not to let him know the reality beyond the doors that surrounded him.
Today, she is a researcher and activist for the rights of Brazilian prison survivors. In the autobiographical book When They Tore Off My Wings, she recounts life in cell seven of Franco da Rocha’s CDP (Provisional Detention Center) for women.
“We have problems with the lack of adequate food, mental and reproductive health care and access to hygiene products,” he explains. “It’s the relatives who have to send the ‘jumbo’ with these objects. But the women are often abandoned by their families.”
Often deprived of support networks, women deprived of their liberty generally receive fewer visits than men. Loneliness is one of the most common experiences a woman experiences behind bars.
A report from the National Mechanism for Prevention and Combating Torture last year described the structure of the prison unit as unhealthy. She also gathered evidence of cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment of pregnant women and babies.
Necessary investments
At the time of the MNPCT inspection, carried out in 2023, two-thirds of the 729 inmates at CDP Franco da Rocha were black or mixed race, and more than 90% were single. Nearly half had not completed primary education.
For Heard, Brazil must not only reduce the female prison population, but also invest more resources to meet their specific needs when prison is unavoidable.
“Unfortunately, women’s prisons are simply modeled on men’s prisons,” he laments. “We would like to see something very different, including smaller units and more study opportunities for women.”
Senappen did not respond to a request for comment from DW on current policies or developments on the topic.
In December, the Chamber of Deputies’ Committee on Public Security and Combating Organized Crime rejected a bill to mandate the distribution of hygiene products, such as toilet paper, panty liners, disposable diapers and children’s materials, in women’s penitentiaries.
The rapporteur, Deputy Sergeant Fahur (PSD), from Paraná, described the proposal as a “moral distortion”. The text was previously approved by two committees and awaits examination by two other committees and the plenary.
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