By Clarens Renois, Asso­ci­ated Press

Haiti’s pris­ons are over­flow­ing with inmates for­got­ten by the author­i­ties since the Jan­u­ary 12 earthquake

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The inmates at Haiti’s only women’s prison cry out in des­per­a­tion as war­den Marie-Yolaine Math­ieu makes her rounds, hop­ing that she will hear their case and per­haps, help secure their release.

“Direc­tor, direc­tor, I need to speak to you,” calls out one woman with mat­ted hair and a blem­ished face, whose days of incar­cer­a­tion with­out a con­vic­tion turned first into weeks and now months.

Like so many oth­ers, the woman make a futile plea for Mathieu’s intervention.

“I’ve been in this prison for six months. I have a 10-year old child who has not been cared for since my mother died dur­ing the earth­quake,” she cried.

“I can’t take it any more,” she screams, beside her­self with despair.

Female Hait­ian pris­on­ers are escorted by guards into a cell in the prison for woman in Petion-ville, Haiti

This impov­er­ished Caribbean country’s bro­ken judi­cial sys­tem has failed its cit­i­zens at every turn. But it has been espe­cially delin­quent in pros­e­cut­ing those who face crim­i­nal charges but have never been con­victed of crimes.

Haiti’s main in prison in Port-au-Prince was vir­tu­ally destroyed by the 7.0-magnitude quake on Jan­u­ary 12, and almost all of its esti­mated 4,000 male pris­on­ers escaped.

But the women’s insti­tu­tion — con­demned years ago by UN offi­cials as “cruel and inhu­mane” — still holds its unhappy occu­pants. Built for around 30 inmates houses 300.

The prison direc­tor said how­ever said she feels for the women, but that she is pow­er­less to improve their plight.

“They keep arrest­ing the women and send­ing them to us,” Math­ieu said, “and the crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem does not free them. What is one to do?”

Women pris­on­ers in Haiti go to school in Petionville, Haiti

The prob­lem is not unique to this facility.

The United Nations Mis­sion in Haiti has fre­quently voiced con­cern over the years about over­crowd­ing in the country’s pris­ons, where the major­ity of inmates have not been con­victed and are being held in pre­ven­tive detention.

Even before January’s mas­sive quake that killed as many as 300,000 peo­ple and reduced much of the cap­i­tal region to rub­ble, only about one prison detainee in 10 had actu­ally been con­victed of a crime.

Like other Hait­ian pris­ons, the women’s facil­ity in Petionville on the out­skirts of the cap­i­tal makes a prac­tice of keep­ing inmates in pre­ven­tive deten­tion, some­times for years.

Even the country’s chief pros­e­cu­tor, Auguste Aris­ti­das, decried the con­di­tions as a “gross injus­tice that is being car­ried out against Hait­ian women.”

The sit­u­a­tion has become only more chaotic since the quake.

“There is a lot of dis­or­der in the sys­tem. Some files can­not be found, which pre­vents us from pros­e­cut­ing their cases,” Aris­ti­das said.

The human rights sec­tion of the UN mis­sion for years has urged the cre­ation of spe­cial com­mis­sions to study indi­vid­ual cases as a way to ease over­crowd­ing at the country’s prisons.

None of the pro­posed reforms ever got off the ground how­ever, and the des­per­ate women here con­tinue to lan­guish while wait­ing for justice.

One woman, about 60 years old, dia­betic and suf­fer­ing from high blood pres­sure, has been wait­ing for three years to be charged.

A 39-year old inmate, who was eight months preg­nant when she was impris­oned, lost her baby because of the deplorable prison con­di­tions. Three oth­ers were forced to give birth in a tiny ill-equipped prison infirmary.

Even the youngest inmates are incar­cer­ated for years at a time, often for minor infractions.

A case in point is Sher­line, who was locked up when she was 16, and today is 21. “In 2005, I had prob­lems with my brother, who felt that I was com­ing home too late at night,” she recounted.

“He drove me to a police sta­tion, to teach me a les­son. I’ve been locked up here ever since,” she said.

Another inmate, Myr­line, 19, was arrested for steal­ing five years ago but has never been seen by a judge.

“The minors some­times wind up here for minor crimes pun­ish­able by three to six months in prison, but they some­times lan­guish five or six years behind bars,” Math­ieu said.

“It breaks my heart to see these chil­dren spend­ing the best years of their lives in prison.

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