The Dignity of Women

Hearing a female prisoner talk of dignity being the most important thing in life made me stop and think for a moment, especially as she was in one of the world's worst female prisons, the National Women's Penitentiary's in Bogota, here in Colombia.

One of the inmates Angela, who you see above performing in the talent competition segment of the annual beauty pageant, was convicted of armed robbery. A robbery she commited so she could feed her family due to the desperate levels of poverty in Colombia.

Dignity is not something many prisoners, or their families receive, and many people around the world believe the day the inmates committed their crime was the day they give up their right to dignity.

And they make this decision without knowing the full facts of the situations.

For many feminists in the West, being a beauty queen doesn't afford you much in the realm of respect because of the degrading way we as women are relegated to walking around in a bikini and evening dress, whilst being asked redundant questions which show little for our intelligence.

Here in Colombia, beauty pageants are a very big deal, which is, in part, one of the reasons why the beauty pageants have become an annual event, a strategic opportunity to calm tempers, release tension and to make life inside prison a little more dignified and humane.

In La Corona, a recent award winning documentary* by Isabel Vega and Amanda Micheli, we are gifted the opportunity to see the inmates prepare themselves and take part in the activities and jubilation leading up to the Beauty Pageant, an event which shows how the right to be a woman, regardless of your perceived freedom status, is honoured.

Watching this documentary, I smiled at the heart warming moments presented by Vega and Micheli. They captured the inner child of these women, who could for a few weeks of the year, remember they are women, and are valuable, and valued as Colombian women.

Choosing their cell-block Queen to represent them, making cheerleading signs, drums from empty plastic bottles, and forming bonds with each other on a whole new level may have been a tension releasing strategy for some in authority to begin with, but for these women, it goes much deeper than that.

To be in prison is to lose access to your families, your friends, your culture, your identity and your own choices in the moment and into the future.

Gifting these women the pageant, the prison authorities also gave the women the opportunity to celebrate each other, to get dressed up and wear make-up, to feel beautiful and to be part of something sacred only to them as inmates.

Speaking with filmaker Isabel Vega shortly after watching the documentary, I shared with her how I thought this pageant was a beautiful thing in many ways for the women to experience, and not just it was the highlight of the inmate's year.

It is a connection to life on the outside, a deep connection to their Colombian culture, as well as a break from the demons they face on a daily basis as they go about their repetitive daily routines.

Many of the women inside Colombian's prison systems come from what is known as the 'lowest low' and 'low' strata systems. A system implemented by the Colombian government to ensure basic living is acheived through appropriation of government funding and support.

Walk around the various regions of Colombia, listen to and join in conversations with local Colombianas, and you will soon discover the funding and support is very rarely seen.

What you do see is money being spent on making cities such as Santa Marta in the Magdelena region, an up and coming attractive alternative to it's neighbour Cartagena - which is drowning in tourists and driving residents further out into the neighbouring areas.

Developing beautiful plazas is one thing, sorting out the underground water system so the roads and homes are not filled with sewage when it rains is quite another, and something that doesn't look like being resolved any time soon.

Walk pass government schools and they look more like prisons than a place where children go to learn, begging the question "Is this a way to set Colombians up for a life in prison?"

I have wondered whether if students get used to being in a place which looks and feels like a prison, with a lack of honour or respect shown for them as human beings, whether this is a fast track to being back inside a more violent version of the school system?

And it isn't the first time this question has crossed my mind. Throughout my travels around the world, each and every country with a Spanish history, whether it is mainland Spain, the Canary Islands or here in Latin America, the government schools resemble prisons more than a nurturing learning environment.

With a lack of education themselves, many teachers are left without the resources, training and facilities to deliver anything more than a mediocre standard of education. They may be good teachers, but becoming a great teacher is unlikely.

A simple 'read, remember, recite' formula seen all over the world is very much the order of the day here, and it is obvious when you interact with people. Initiative is almost non-existence and certainly not rewarded, in fact it is so stifled, instructions are followed without any deviation what-so-ever.

Education is not considered important enough for the poorer folk, and when you consider that few people within the educated echelons of the world don't even know or understand their human rights, is there any wonder here in countries such as Colombia they are unheard of, let alone fought for?

Many governments, including the ones who agreed to the terms of the International Bill of Human Rights, have made it their agenda to not inform their citizens of their rights.

Back in 1966, Colombia signed both the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights along the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, both of which make up the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (UDHR).

Show me where the economic, social and cultural rights are granted to all Colombians and I will happily retract parts of this article. Show me where in the world all citizens of the 192 nation states who signed these treaties, honour the rights of all humans and I will gladly retract all the comments to the contrary.

Colombia, along with 191 other nation states, signed these treaties, so why are we still seeing so many human rights violations going on in the country? And why does Colombia have the third lowest levels of human development in all of South America, with Bolivia and Paraguay taking the bottom two spots?

Why in the last 50 years, has military conflict directly affected the lives of over 8.7 million Colombians with over 200,000 people killed and between 45,000 - 111,000 people ‘disappearing'? - much like they did in Egypt leading up to the Uprising, which I wrote about in my second book Walaahi.

When governments sign these treaties, they do so knowing they have little to no intention of improving the conditions of the poor, disabled and the uneducated.

Governments in Latin America, Asia, Arabia and Africa prefer a nation of people who can be controlled, and Western governments are following their lead fast, which the current health violations around the world so very clearly show.

They do not wish to provide for the future generations, so it is left for NFP organisations such as Children Change Colombia - a UK charity, to raise awareness and funds to support a brighter future tomorrow.

For all those living in poverty in Colombia and around the world, Angela's incarceration is something many men and women will be able to relate to. They have no choice but to beg or steal, and the gun in many cases of non gang related armed robberies is more for bravado and self-protection rather than intent to kill.

Any government which chooses to incarcerate people who steal to feed their family, rather than deal with the underlying problems, clearly have no intention of improving the lives of the citizens of the country.

And with the recent elections in Nicaragua being yet another example of political corruption, things don't look to be improving in this part of the world any time soon.

The attempts by the prison system here in Colombia to honour the inalienable rights of prisoners dignity is a big step forward, and one which reminds me of the Compassion Prison Project, founded by Fritzi Horstman, a Grammy-award winning producer for her work on “The Defiant Ones”, and producer and director of many other films.

Getting to know Colombia, the people, the culture and the problems here, I now understand why I have been called "Reina" on more than a few occasions everytime I step out into the streets. Being called "Reina" is no more than a wolf whistle on the streets of the UK, and shows how deeply rooted the beauty pageant culture is here.

Pageant's are not only for the poorest members of the Colombian population though. Even the Colombiana Elite take part in the National Beauty Pageant, which costs a pretty peso to enter, and that's without the designer dresses and stylists which are on hand to launch careers, and find a millionaire husband.

One of the saddest things about Colombia's National Beauty Pageant is that is takes place at the same time as the pageant as those in the poorer communities - the elite over shadowing the poor once again, a sign of shame perhaps? Or maybe insecurity? Some would argue both.

And whilst Colombian's government does very little to offer it's citizens a humane standard of living, only 1.5% of citizens make up the elite, and enjoy a high standard of life. These are mainly white decendants from the Colonial take over and are known as the people from Strata 6.

Only 10% of Colombians live in well built houses in developed neighbourhoods with schools of any kind of credibility making up Stratas 4, 5 and 6, whilst the remaining 90% is split into 22% of Colombians living in extreme poverty (Strata 1), 63% living in what is classed simply as low poverty in Strata 2 and the remaining 5% living in Strata 3 also known as poverty.

So whilst those of us in the West may look down on the women taking part in these beauty pageants, for the women taking part in them, being cheered on by their cell mates, this is something much bigger than just women in bikinis strutting their stuff and being asked questions on world peace.

This is a chance for these women to silence their own demons and the loss of family members, to be given hope, courage and confidence even if it is for just a few weeks of the year.

Whilst some of them show no remorse or regret for what they have done, many have learnt their lessons, but with no support once they get out, no job opportunities, no education, it is no surprise that up to 70% of them return to what they know, because even though conditions are squalid in the prisons, they are often better than the conditions these women face at home.

*To watch the documentary, please use the following link and password: https://vimeo.com/73243221 Password: p@geant

**Upon being released, Angela went back to her children only to find out her own mother was too poor to feed them, and had housed them in a convent. When Angela saw her children neither of them responded well to her. Angela returned to the streets to survive and was found dead six months later.

#prisonreform #womensrights #beautypageants #documentarymakers #colombia #udhr #humanrights #socialjustice