Early yesterday morning (Friday 23rd August) a fight involving gas canisters (which led to a fire) broke out in the high-security jail of Palmasol in Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Currently the facts are rather sketchy, but the BBC reports that at least 29 people have died and 50 are injured. Read more on the BBC website here. Among the dead was one young child who was badly burned.
I’d always known that many of the children living at Alalay had parents or relatives locked up in this jail but I had never before taken the time to investigate the reality of life in this “prison town” of approximately 3,500 inmates. And as soon as I did investigate, I was horrified.
Back in 2005 the BBC reported in “Bolivia’s Prison Children” about the children living inside this barbed wire enclosure, but it seems that six years on, not much has changed, and hundreds of children still live behind bars with their parents in the most gruesome conditions. Palmasola, like many other Bolivian prisons is vastly overcrowded. According to many sources, prostitution, drugs and violent attacks (often resulting in death) are rife, and the gangs and most serious offenders rule the corridors extorting and controlling other prisoners. The only “lucky” inmates are those with money who can afford to buy a cell with en-suite bathrooms and televisions (for prices as high as $10,000). The rest (and I suspect, many of the Alalay children’s relatives) sleep in the gutter, surviving on a gruel-like food served once a day. Apparently four out of five prisoners never face trial, and without the money needed to bribe, they never leave.
Many of the children at Alalay may have fortunately escaped living within this reality, for which I am eternally grateful. But we must continue to work with those children still living on the streets, offering them the safe haven of Alalay and a positive future, rather than them ever ending up in a place like this.
Find out more about the Palmasol prison here:
- “Three Days in Hell” – written by an American who managed to visit the prison in 2012
- “Police: At least 30 killed in Bolivia prison melee“
- “Las cárceles en Bolivia: Una verdadera bomba de tiempo” (in Spanish – “Prisons in Bolivia: A real time bomb”)
