LA PAZ — When an inmate at the Miraflores prison in La Paz gets sick, another one takes care of her. When one cries, another one hugs her. Whenever one needs help, another one shares what she has at hand. And when one needs to talk, another listens.
There are, of course, also differences and conflicts. But caring for one another is a fundamental part of the daily life and functioning of this maximum security prison for women — the only one of its kind in Bolivia.
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For the inmates, chatting in a small courtyard, sitting on seats made from egg cartons, is a liberating moment. It is when they can break their silence, tell their stories, remember what they miss most from outside, and dream of a free future.
This moment and space has become a sort of therapy they have created themselves to heal their souls and forget, for a few minutes, the problems, injustice and great difficulties they have been facing in recent years — especially since 2020.
The pandemic in prison
It all started with the restrictions imposed because of the COVID-19 pandemic: only immediate relatives under 55 were allowed in. They had to wear biosecurity suits, gloves and masks. A vaccination card was also required.
“Every Sunday I saw the prisoners cry because their parents were at the door and couldn’t come in. They came from very far away to see their daughters and even then they were barred from entering,” said Sofia, a former inmate who was released a few months ago.
For many prisoners, not being able to hug their parents was real punishment. But they understood that the public health measure was necessary during the pandemic and subsequent strict quarantine. Those restrictions, however, were maintained in the Miraflores prison, even while everything gradually returned to normal outside — as well as in other prisons, where visits were again allowed without limitations.
“Visits are not only a matter of affection, it is also a matter of economic sustainability.”
The application of restrictions was exacerbated by the arrival of former Interim President Jeanine Anez in 2021. During Anez’s hearings in 2022, the inmates were not allowed out of their cells.
Beyond denying them hugs and emotional support from their families, restricting visits also ended the inmates’ contact with the outside world, putting them in financial trouble and creating desperation among prisoners.
Most inmates used visiting days to make a little money by selling sweets or crafts, among other small businesses. Sofía explained that visiting days were “a good time for women to earn extra money. Visits are not only a matter of affection, it is also a matter of economic sustainability.”
The restrictions on visits were imposed for three years, and began to be lifted in September 2023, said Sara, who is working with Sofia and Lucia on a study of the Miraflores that is based on their own experiences, as well as those of current inmates.
Prison economy
Most of the jobs available to women in Miraflores are precarious, and even the best paid ones do not provide minimum wage, Sofia said, adding that “with normal jobs, women can earn 100 bolivianos (about ) a month, which is enough to live on. But often, they also have to send money to their children.” Even in prison, women are still in charge of caring for their families.
The most coveted job in Miraflores is the laundry service, because it is an external service, Sofia said. “People bring their clothes and they get paid. Even though they pay very little compared to other laundries, it is still more than what they would earn with other internal jobs.”
Some of the most common jobs are selling candy, groceries, personal hygiene items and clothing. In addition to doing work to make money, Miraflores inmates have assigned tasks within the prison, such as cleaning the bathrooms for a month. If an inmate does not want to do a job, she can pay another inmate to do it for her.
A code of caring
Communication with the outside world by phone was also cut off for a few weeks this year, and desperation took over the prison. “Many mothers call their children every day to find out if they have done their homework, if they went to school or if they have eaten. But during that time, they were not able to do so,” Sofia said.
In these conditions, rather than protest or riot, which could add years to a sentence, the inmates create alliances and support networks to cope. At lunch, they cook meals together, pooling their ingredients together: one contributes with a potato, another with a chuño (a traditional freeze-dried potato product) and another with rice.
If a prisoner is sick, her cellmate takes care of her, preparing maté (a traditional South American caffeine-rich infused herbal drink), or getting medication from the infirmary. “The medical services are terrible, and that’s what happens,” said Lucia, a Miraflores inmate who was released eight years ago. In case of an emergency, the inmates “make noise” so that the sick inmate receives medical attention.
It’s like a Miraflores code.
Collective therapy
Chewing coca leaves and chatting in the small courtyard is also a way of offering support and creating alliances. They all meet in this space when the doors to the outside close, generally after 5:00 p.m. They take tocos (seats made from egg cartons), listen to music — cumbia is almost always the chosen option — and talk about their cases, about their problems, about life.
During these talks, the women discover that they often share similar backgrounds. “Systemic oppression binds us. People think we are crazy psychopaths who planned and went to hurt other people. But they don’t know that there are people who, for example, stole to feed their children,” usually because their partners and husbands abandoned them, Sofia said, noting cases of women “whose violent boyfriend forced them to participate in something they didn’t want to, and someone ended up dead.”
Through these conversations, the women discover that others also suffered patriarchal violence before entering Miraflores. This space functions as a kind of collective therapy. A response to the minimal psychological attention they receive, and that is reduced even further by prison bureaucracy.
Some are able to access psychological services through a free professional who comes every Tuesday, thanks to the Institute for Therapy and Research on the Aftermath of Torture and State Violence (ITEI).
Patriarchal and moralistic
Yet Lucia denounces the absence of reintegration work in prison. She said that there are some isolated courses and that the Ministry of Education offers technical training, but these reproduce a patriarchal vision of labor through gender stereotypes.
“They don’t teach you anything useful. It’s hard to make a living from knitting, but they teach you how to knit, bake cakes and cook,” Lucía said, adding that when she was in prison, they had computer classes, but with obsolete equipment. She said that the issue of reintegration is very abstract and is based on a prejudice: “all the people in prison are damaged.”
Moreover, Lucia noted the “very patriarchal and very moralistic model” for dealing with female inmates and a stronger bias against women in prison, compared to male inmates. “Everything they do in terms of reintegration is aimed at making you a good housewife,” she said, noting that since she left prison, the education offer has not changed; it still focuses on being good mothers and being “good women.”
Forgotten by feminism
In addition to the ITEI, other organizations provide different types of support or activities at Miraflores. The most regular are religious groups.
“That is something we point out in our study. Feminism does not enter prisons. There are no feminist groups that provide continuous support for prisoners or that have a supportive position toward prisoners. Feminism, too, has forgotten about prisoners,” Sofia said.
Lucia agreed: “Feminism outside prison is only a slogan and does not take into account fellow prisoners.” And she said that connecting with female inmates is an important political battle. She believes feminism can also be exercised in everyday life in a more committed way, “when there are colleagues who show you that something else can be possible.”
The study’s results
The study conducted by Sofia, Lucia and Sara is presented in a podcast called La cebolla atrapada, or “The Trapped Onion.” It reflects on life inside Miraflores, punitivism, prison society, confinement, house arrest, life support and care work.
Sara said that the purpose of the study was not to dwell on the conditions within the prisons: “We wanted to get a closer look at the forms of resistance the prisoners develop, and how they maintain their autonomy despite being locked up,” she said, stressing that one of the main characteristics is constant support among inmates.
For example, when a woman arrives at Miraflores, the others come to her and explain the prison’s dynamics: the schedules, the rhythms and the tasks.
“It is a question of destigmatization.”
“Groups also form around common interests, friendships emerge,” Sara said, stressing that she did not want to romanticize the subject: “We don’t want to portray the fact that these inmates support one another as an ideal, because we believe that prisons shouldn’t exist.”
A second season of the study will be dedicated to the stories of these women, Lucia said, stressing that they would not take a sensationalist perspective of how they ended up in prison. Rather, they want to show “that these women are just like you and me, but circumstances have led them there. It is a question of destigmatization.”
Bridging gaps
“I know that getting close to the prison is uncomfortable, but it is possible. Now visits are allowed. There are many prisoners who are very capable, who have political clarity and want to make their voices heard, but no one is listening to them. So I think that feminism has to step outside its comfort zone and dare to occupy spaces that have not benefited from such light before,” Sofia said.
Both she and Lucia said they experienced this exclusion upon leaving prison. They hope their research will help bridge this gap between people who are “free” and women who are “deprived of freedom.” The former inmates are committed to those women and promise not to forget them. They know that when you leave prison, you do not leave completely, you leave something and take something with you.
Lucía says that freedom is the most longed-for desire in prison, but it is also something abstract. Among the many issues that can be discussed in prison, is learning to live after confinement. “It is something I still experience today. It is so difficult to get a job because people recognize me,” Sofia said.
When you enter the prison, you think it is the worst, but then, when you talk to the other inmates, you realize that “the worst thing is not being in jail, the worst thing is being on the street,” Lucia said. “In jail, for better or worse, you have a roof over your head and food. You have support.”
Many inmates, once released, manage to resume their lives on the outside. But others return to prison.
One day, a woman who had completed her sentence at Miraflores returned a few hours later and asked to get back in; outside she had no place to sleep or money to buy food. But she could not return to prison.
From inside, her companions felt her fear, but they could not hug her.
This report was financed by the Bolivian Apthapi Jopueti Women’s Fund (Fondo de Mujeres Bolivia Apthapi Jopueti), through the Center for Popular Studies.
