A dump of a prison inside and out
I am an Honduran national who was taken to Belize when I was 17 on a promise of work and hope for my family.
Most of the stories you hear about women like me are about how we are voluntary prostitutes and that we came to Belize of our own free will. This is hardly the case. A man came to our village and talked about the chance to make money working in the resort island of Ambergris Caye in Belize. My family needed money and I was at an age that school did not matter as much as money to feed our family. I decided to go.
During my travel to Belize this man picked up a number of other girls along the route. Some with papers other without. When we arrived at the border we were told to get into the trunk of this taxi and we would be driven across the border into Belize and met on the other side.
Like most girls and women that end up in Belize we were held and forced to work in bars not resorts. By being held it was more of a threat, my travel documents were held, I had a debt for the job, I owed for food, rent everything.
The work was bad. Men wanting to drink with you touch you. I did not agree. The bar owner told me that if I did not have sex with men or women he would turn me in, which he did.
I was arrested for immigration violations. Placed in jail in San Pedro, at least separated from the men in a cell, with other women. No bathroom, shower, food was okay. I had no legal help, no one to call just alone without any money. Yet the police in the jail did say for sex I would be treated better. I did not.
On my court day it seemed to be a few minutes and that was it. I was stupid. I pleaded not guilty, the mistake all victims make. So you understand, if I had pleaded guilty the fine was small and I could have had a chance to be free. Even without money, I had a small chance. Pleading not guilty bail had to be set, $3000 Belize plus two assurances. I knew no one. Off to Hattieville.
You are convicted at that time, ordered to Hattieville prison for three months then deported out of the country. No trial, no right or wrong you, are done over.
I was taken by boat from San Pedro to Belize City, I spent the night in the Albert Street sewer of a police station. The smell of urine, people screaming, police beating people. No bed. Slept on the floor in a corner with 15 other women crammed in a cell that was 10 by 6 feet. No bathroom. Had to ask to be taken out and then no door on the bathroom and the police stand and stare at your body.
The next morning we are loaded up and off to Hattieville on a bus chained together for the short ride to the prison. At first view the prison is in the country out of the city eyes. A large sprawling complex with many buildings added on over the years of all different size and shape. A large farm with open areas surrounding the prison.
The guards take you through a process of registering you, taking fingerprints, photos and the like.
Then you are placed out in a holding area to wait to be taken to your new home for the next three months. That is when it starts. The trustees, as they are called, are the long-timers and the lifers in Hattieville. They run much of the work inside Hattieville while the guards sit in their offices with prisoners who have money and influence, pimping money off the prisoners.
I finally was taken to what is called the women’s detention center, or as most called it the women’s play pen. You have a mix of every crime, murder, guns, thieves, you name it, they are all in one happy place as the Kolbe Foundation would have the world believe.
We are separated from the men, other then the guards that come in to review the fresh fish as you are branded. I was in a cell with 8 other women, a piece of smelling foam as your bed cover, no sheets, nothing supplied. You have to wait till a girl leaves then fight over her shit till you find enough stuff to live.
You are fed like animals, fed through your cage door, breakfast, well, mild tea, lunch rice with a dollar size piece of something, a piece of bread in the afternoon. You do not have anything to eat with, you scrounge anything to hold food in. Otherwise you do not eat or drink.
The water is like salt water fed from the pool of a lake in the center of the prison. No toilet I mean the fixtures are there the seat is gone so you have to squat over this filthy toilet that smells. No doors on the bathrooms or showers, well, not a shower a pipe with cold water.
The long-timers are the bosses of the women’s center, they have nothing to lose, they have a TV, Game Boys, drugs, real water, money, they have all needed to make your life not live-able, just able to exist. They are the boss when the guards are gone.
At night, 7:00 is the last time you see the guards ‘til in the morning they are in their little shack sleeping. You cannot sleep. Every night is a party. Drugs flow freely inside. It is also cheap, just pot in most cases. Music playing we are locked down no matter, a string, a plastic bottle and you can pass everything around from cell to cell. Get high. Some have cell phones.
The outside world has no access to us inside. Kolbe and Woods control everything going in and out. According to what I was told or what the world was told blankets, uniforms, supplies all came with a new prisoner – a lie. Mr. Woods you may have had money for it, obviously spent on the needs of those in high places, not for us prison bitches.
I settled in. I had no choice being a tall woman. I had my fights to deal with and settled my place so no one screwed with me. The girls inside all talked about how to get help when you got out how to get home. The big boss, Oboma, was her name. Not really, that was her rap name. She had connections to the outside. She made arrangements for me when I got out I could get help.
The day I was released I was told I had two days to leave the Belize, and was dumped in downtown Belize City with no money, no clothes, nothing and told if I was found in Belize after 48 hours I could spend a year back in Hattieville.
I went to a meeting place that had been arranged, I was questioned taken to the embassy, documented and then taken out of Belize that same day. Not by aid from Belize in any form.
How Hattieville prison is presented by the Kolbe Foundation and Woods is not true. The only people that understand the truth about Hattieville are prisoners and as prisoners you have no rights and who would believe a criminal?
Takenwomen's Blog 
Posted on September 17, 2010
0