Durban - Girly* is six months old. She attends daycare in a highly guarded facility, with high brick walls, razor-wire and armed men and women dressed in brown situated at almost every gate.
Besides the security, it’s just like any other daycare: toddlers crawling on the floor, playing with toys while others are being fed milk or having their nappies changed.
The playroom is brightly painted with a mural of animals and charts pasted on the walls. The high-chairs and white cots stand empty while the little ones sit on the mat with their teachers.
This is the female section of the Johannesburg Correctional Services facility, otherwise known as Sun City, where women ranging from murderers to drug mules and shoplifters are held.
Girly’s mother, Thandi*, is serving an 18-year term for robbery, and apart from the first eight days her daughter spent at Kalafong Hospital – where she gave birth – the little girl does not know life outside prison.
Mother and child share a cell with seven other toddlers and their mothers.
Thandi fell pregnant while she was out on bail and was almost five months pregnant when she was sentenced. She started her sentence at the Pretoria Female Correctional Services facility not far from Kalafong.
“I was very disappointed with myself. Patients stared and felt sorry for me during my hospital visits,” said Thandi. “They looked at this person who was handcuffed and pregnant at the same time.”
Girly only has the next 18 months to bond with her mother before she is sent away. Before, children were released from prison at the age of five, but Correctional Services has reduced the age to two.
“I hated the fact that my daughter would be living with me in prison. At first, I wanted my family to take care of her, but the department wanted us to bond before she turns two,” said the 29-year-old mother.
“I can’t wait to see her go home. She is still young and does not know what a car looks like… or even dogs.”
Like other toddlers at the prison daycare, Girly only knows dogs and animals from the charts pasted on the wall. She has never heard a barking dog or a moving car.
She is likely to have difficulty interacting with males, because just like other children born in prison they grow up surrounded by females.
Most of these children have no idea what a man looks like, as their cells are guarded by female warders.
In most cases, the words first uttered by children living in prison facilities are “Dankie, hek” (Thank you, gate) or “parade” – spoken when a warder starts doing a headcount in each cell.
At the daycare, Girly spends six hours with other children and three teachers. The teachers report for duty daily and are not inmates or warders. They do not live on correctional services premises.
Among teachers at the facility is Maureen Motswene, who previously owned a day-care centre in Soweto. She was used to a huge number of children ranging from six months to Grade R. But things are different at the correctional services day-care centre.
The prison crèche caters for 23 children, even though the number of children living at the prison is double that. The crèche has two playgrounds with swings, see-saws and slides.
Children are able to connect with natural elements such as the sun, grass and soil - giving them a sense of normality.
Before the mother and child unit was built for children like Girly, children living on the premises did not have access to a playground.
They played in an isolated environment, which deprived them of sunlight.
Inside this daycare, there are normal daily routines consisting of outdoor and indoor activities like drawing, painting and story time.
Girly’s day begins at 8am when she is dropped off by her mother, like any other children at any day-care centre. Girly’s mother, who attends sewing school at the prison, fetches her at 2pm – just before lock-up time.
*Not their real names.
The Mercury