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Babies Behind Bars: Children Serve Time with Mothers in Mexico’s Prisons

In the northern Mexican state of Chihuahua, mothers serving prison sentences are allowed to keep children under 4 with them as they serve their sentence. They say having the kids there helps, but some worry it’s sending the wrong message.

Written by Melissa Lyttle, Irene Caselli Published on Read time Approx. 8 minutes
Lunch is served in the common area of the living quarters in the women’s state prison in Chihuahua City, Mexico. Special meals and baby food are provided for the children who live in the prison with their moms. Melissa Lyttle

CHIHUAHUA, Mexico – Melissa is 18 months old: shy, chubby and well taken care of. She plays on a concrete slab during her mom’s morning Zumba class, giggling and mimicking the movements of the women dancing. After her afternoon nap, she watches “SpongeBob SquarePants” on a small TV set.

Melissa’s relationship with her mother is like any other child’s, except the Zumba class they attend together takes place in a recreation yard, and she watches TV in the prison cell she and her mother share with two other women.

Melissa wanders through a morning Zumba class in the Chihuahua women’s prison. Her mom was arrested six years ago for kidnapping. (Melissa Lyttle)

Melissa’s mother, Barbara Sanchez, 27, was arrested six years ago for kidnapping. Barbara says she was unaware of what her husband did for a living, and that she never took part in the crime she was charged with, but she was sentenced to 10 years in prison.

Melissa lies on the bunk she shares with her mom, watching “SpongeBob SquarePants” on TV while drifting off for an afternoon nap. (Melissa Lyttle)

“It’s the strength that God sent me to keep going in here,” says Sanchez of having her child with her. “When I found out I was pregnant, it made me very happy.”

Melissa won’t be able to live with her mother beyond the age of 4, but Sanchez says that things are easier with her around until then. “She will know that I am her mother,” she says.

Of the 167 incarcerated women in state prison just outside of Chihuahua City, Mexico, 12 are mothers who have given birth in the prison and are now allowed to have their young children in prison with them. In Mexico, incarcerated women who give birth in prison have the right to keep their children with them. Mexican NGO Reinserta calculates there are between 300 and 600 children up to six years of age in Mexico’s federal and state-run prisons. Rules regarding the period of stay vary from state to state. In Mexico City, for example, children can stay with their mothers until they are six years old.

The majority of the women in the Chihuahua prison who spoke to News Deeply were incarcerated because they had boyfriends or husbands whose main business was working for cartels, whether at a lower level like dealing drugs, or a higher level like kidnapping and extortion.

The women also got wrapped up in that world – either seduced by the lifestyle and fast money or unknowing or unwilling to admit they were condoning a life of crime. For some, if they were present during the crime, or their house was searched and guns and drugs were found, everyone in the household was charged as an accessory at the very least, or guilty of the crime, if the prosecutor and police were looking to make a statement.

“She gives me motivation and makes the time in here go by faster,” says Isaura’s mom Saira Duran, right, who was three months pregnant when she was arrested for theft. (Melissa Lyttle)

Isaura is 9 months old. She lives in a cell with her mother and two other inmates. “She’s the owner of this bunker,” says Fernanda, one of the cellmates, laughing. The grinning baby girl has brought much relief to this cell, where her mother and her adoptive aunties like to spend time playing with her.

“Imagine waking up and seeing a child smiling in this place,” says Deira, the other auntie. “She lights up the whole cell.”

“It’s been hard to have her here, but I am happy at the same time. She gives me motivation and makes the time in here go by faster,” says her mom, Saira Duran, who was three months pregnant when she was arrested for theft, and has four years left of her five-year sentence.

Marcela Perez Soto, 26, who’s serving five years for carjacking, lifts weights with her 6-month-old son, Axel, laying nearby. “I am not worried that he is growing up here, because he can only be here up until a certain age,” she said. (Melissa Lyttle)

While the mothers enjoy having their children with them, others debate whether or not it’s a good thing for the kids.

“It is the best thing that can happen to you in here. You share with a child, and life becomes lighter. It becomes lighter for the other women, too. Everyone wants to support the babies,” says Brenda Armenta, who has been in jail for five years for theft, but is still awaiting sentencing.

But she adds, “This is not a place for babies. This is a place for us, for us to be thinking about what we did.”

The presence of the children seem to make the prison population kinder and gentler, bringing out the maternal instincts in many, one prison guard told News Deeply. But still, she questions the long-lasting effects the prison stints will have on the children.

In most parts of Mexico, mothers behind bars can keep their children up to age 3 or 4. This mother was an accountant who is in a state prison for fraud and is awaiting sentencing. She walks back to her cell for roll call and lunch after two hours of art workshops, where she makes barrettes and decorates boxes while her daughter plays by her side. (Melissa Lyttle)

Brenda Armenta has her 2-month-old son, Justin, in prison with her, and she said she plans on telling him about his beginnings when he’s old enough to understand.

“I would not hide it away from him, because he is living here, but he is not a prisoner.

“It is me who has been sentenced. He can come in and out as he wishes. That is his privilege.”

Brenda Armenta, 34, spends some quiet time with her son Justin, 2 months, in the cell that they share with other women at the Cereso Estatal Femenil 1. (Melissa Lyttle)

Another mom, Araceli, 35, agrees. Her 3-month-old daughter, Jetzel, wears custom pink headbands that Araceli sews for her out of leftover fabric in the arts and crafts room.

Jetzel is constantly being picked up and doted on by the other prisoners and by prison guards, one of whom held her and sang to her one afternoon so Araceli could get some sewing work done.

Araceli, 35, has a 3-month-old daughter, Jetzel, in prison with her. She sews headbands for her daughter in the sewing workshop. (Melissa Lyttle)

“When she grows up, I will tell her where she was,” Araceli says. “I don’t know yet what the conversation will be like, but I am sure she will ask because on her birth certificate you can read where she was born.”

“So I will need to tell her, and I will have to find the way to talk to her about it.”

Melissa Lyttle’s reporting was made possible with the help of the International Women’s Media Foundation.

UPDATED: This story has been updated to correct the number of children estimated to be Mexico’s prisons and give more details about the rights of incarcerated mothers to keep their children with them.

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