POPULATION-JAMAICA: Women Languishing in British Prisons

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Virginia Hardy

KINGSTON, Sep 7 1998 (IPS) - Driven to desperation by the current economic situation, many Jamaican women are taking up lucrative offers to smuggle illegal drugs into Britain, but in many cases the high-risk ventures have backfired, leaving the women languishing in jail in that country.

More than 644 Jamaicans are currently doing time in British jails and of that number more than 220 are women, according to Olga Heaven, executive director of the Hibiscus Welfare Prison Agency in the United Kingdom.

During a recent interview on a local radio programme, Heaven also revealed that about 90 percent of these women have been imprisoned for the importation of drugs, particularly cocaine.

Jamaica’s geographic location makes the island an ideal mid-way point for drug shipments between South America, the United States and Europe.

The United Nations International Drug Control Programme estimates that 248 metric tonnes of cocaine enter the US through the Central and Eastern Caribbean each year. This is about 40 percent of the cocaine entering the US, up from 30 percent in the early 1990s.

Another 100 tonnes of cocaine leave South America through the Caribbean corridor en route to Europe while a third flow transits the Caribbean at the west side through Central America and converges at the Mexican border for overland transit to the United States

Altogether 61.8 percent of all cocaine leaving Latin America transits the Caribbean corridor.

In the mid-1990s, when transatlantic drug dealers began to come under increased scrutiny from narcotics security forces, women were recruited to act as couriers in the trade.

“Women present an attractive means of transporting narcotics. They are thought to be less likely to draw suspicion, likely to get lenience, more easily manipulated and – in addition to other methods – can stash drugs in their vaginal cavity,” said a release from the govrnment news agency, Jampress.

Dundeen Ferguson, president of Woman Inc, a local NGO said many drug pushers are now opting to peddle their wares in Britain rather than the United States.

“The US has tightened up and they have strict laws. The United Kingdom may not be as stringent so some may choose that route,” she said.

According to Ferguson, women are lured into the drug trade for various reasons.

“A lot of it is material gain. Many of these girls are from a background of poverty and dependence and they’re easily swayed by the promise of easy money. But there are also one or two cases where women agree to act as mules (the term given to women who engage in this practice) because they fear for their lives,” she said.

“I heard of one girl who had been in an abusive relationship with a gentleman who was assisting her financially and – as a way to repay his kindness – he propositioned her about becoming a drug mule,” he added.

Oral Denton, the co-ordinator of Hibiscus Jamaica, the local arm of the British agency said most women who become drug couriers usually do so in a desperate attempt to escape poverty.

“Ninety-nine percent of them are from ghetto areas and they do it because of their economic situation. They are offered big-time money – sometimes 3,000 pounds or more – many of them are not working and the drug barons bribe them,” he explained.

As part of his duties, Denton has had to visit the homes of some of these women and he says he is often shocked to see their living conditions.

“They are living in in-humane conditions. You can’t even call it houses because they don’t have proper sanitary conveniences, they have to carry water from outside and if they have electricity they steal it from the power company,” he said.

In Britain, Heaven said, the situation has raised serious concern about social conditions in Jamaica. “One has to wonder what is happening in Jamaica at the moment,” she said.

“Several years ago we had situations where drug couriers were t here.

Ferguson said the solution lies in empowering women because they will be less likely to be manipulated if they are “independent and able to thrive on their own”.

“Women have to learn to develop their skills so they can support themselves so they won’t be easily fooled,” she said.

There also needs to be a public education programme to make the population more aware of the consequences of drug trafficking, says Hyacinth Bennett, the National Democratic Movement’s (NDM) spokesperson on women’s affairs. The NDM is Jamaica’s third political party.

“I don’t think people are really aware of the consequences of getting involved in that sort of activity,” she said.

Bennett maintains that an improvement in the situation will not come about solely as a result of more stringent drug laws.

“Anti-drug legislation will not be as helpful as an internal revolution. What is needed is morality and for our people to have a sense of what is wrong and right. If change does not come from within the people then legislation is not going to be of much help,” she said.