Tragic Children Born To Women Confined In A Filthy, Overcrowded El Salvador Prison

Their only crime is that they were unfortunate enough to be born behind bars in a notorious El Salvadoran prison, but it may just be enough to condemn them to death.

Some 1,700 women are serving time at the Ilopango prison just outside San Salvador, even though the correctional facility was meant to house just over 560 inmates. About 300 of the female convicts are mothers who live with their children until they turn five years old, after which they will be released to their relatives or handed over to the state, according to prison authorities.

While El Salvador’s prison administration has been striving to present Llopongo as a model correctional facility where inmates get to take part in a variety of productive activities, visitors to the prison have painted a far bleaker picture.

A small group from an Alabama parish that was allowed to inspect the women’s prison and meet with the inmates last year later wrote about the horrible conditions they had encountered inside.

 

 

According to the visitors from St Dominic parish, the overcrowding has created health problems with six women occupying spaces designed for one.

The visitors also described their surprise when they came across 125 children under the age of five living inside the shabby facility, many of them appearing to be starving because there is not enough food to sustain the entire prison population.