While women weep.................

In each of the prisons we visited in Ethiopia we were also allowed to visit the women prisoners and their children. It was these visits that had the most profound affect upon the team. Even now as I write my emotions rise when I think of their situation. It is true that some have plenty of space but on entering their huts we are silenced at the deprivation of their living conditions. There is a mud floor and only one out of the five or six women has a mattress to sleep on. They are totally dependent upon what family and friends will bring them from outside. None have mosquito nets and their few possessions are hung on hooks in plastic carrier bags on the walls. There is a single light bulb hanging from the corrugated roof that gives the only light in their windowless home. It is hot and dirty. Some of their children share this accommodation, others are being looked after by family or people in their village, others when they have reached the age of 12 will have been thrown out onto the streets to fend for themselves. We conferred together and decided that we had enough beurre between us to buy each woman a mattress. Prison fellowship would organise this for us.


We were able to talk to the women through our interpreters and discover their stories. One was a mother with a toddler, she was also pregnant. Her husband and two other children were in the prison next door. They are accused of perverting the course of justice because they turned their lights out when a local man, involved in a violent crime was on the run. They have no legal aid and no idea when their case will come to court. The women will have her baby in the hut, having had no pre-natal care. If she gets into difficulties the prison authorities will at least get her to a clinic in the town. If I never do anything else worthwhile in my officership I will never forget the privilege of praying with this women, the sense of the presence of God and the tears we all shared.


We heard story after story but perhaps Desinia's which means my sister represents them all. Her sentence is 22 years for killing her husband. 50% of the women in prison here are in for this crime. It should be remembered that most of them were put into arranged marriages at the age of about 12 and committed to a life of yearly child-bearing, fetching and carrying water, and scraping a living from the land, perhaps suffering terrible abuse and may have been infected with HIV by their husbands. Desinia's children are not with her. Her eldest is 14 and a domestic servant, another child is in the care of people from her village but is very unhappy and her youngest two children she believes are victims of human trafficking. She is in despair. Never have I prayed with such intensity that righteousness might flow like a river and justice like a never ending stream.

Evangeline Booths words seemed very poignant when I read them the next day.

I see forsaken children, I see the tears that fall

From womens eyes once merry now never laugh at all;

I see the see the sins and sorrows of those who sit in darkness

I see in lands far distant the hungry and oppressed

But behold! On a hill, Calvary!

The world for God, the world for God

I will give my heart!

I will do my part.

God bless

Carol