Pawns of imperialism
01 January 1991
Pawns of imperialism
artdoc December=1992
The inequitable sentencing of women from Third World nations
convicted of drug smuggling has long been ignored. CARF
supportsthese women. They are not the prime movers in the
drug trade, but victims of the destruction of Third World
economies.
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Nine Latin American women convicted of drug smuggling went on
hunger strike earlier this year at Styal prison in Cheshire in
protest against the inequitable sentencing policies and parole
decisions meted out on them by the British criminal justice
system. Their action reflects the concerns of
similarly imprisoned women from the Third World who
consistently receive harsher sentences than British women
committing
comparable offences.
Organisations like Grupo Amiga, which supported the women
in Styal, and Maendeleoya Wanawakee African Prisoners' Scheme
are working for the right of Third World women to fairer
sentencing and parole.
Dehumanising sentencing
Unlike British citizens, foreign nationals do not have the
right to a `home circumstances' or `social enquiry' report,
and so are denied the defence plea of mitigation. For a
British woman, these reports play an important part in her
defence case: factors like previous record, economic
situation, her health and the health of her children are
considered in court and influence sentencing.
`I felt mad when my husband died ... too much
responsibility for me, school, rent, food, everything ...
I'm in prison for money.'
Colombian, 26
For Third World women,however, the fact that many of them
have had no previous involvement with drug trafficking and
only became involved owing to severe economic hardship is
seldom taken into account. Furthermore, their sentences are
based on the estimated street value, according to purity and
weight, of the drug carried - something over which the women
who carry the drugs have no control.
A sentencing system which emphasises the image of the
inde-pendent profiteer, the immorality of the drug baron and,
more generally, the Third World threat, corrupts the truth of
these women's desperate existence. Using its own racist
constructions to justify its inequitable treatment, the
judiciary is seen to be waging a moral crusade, pronouncing
longer sentences to deter other couriers from making the trip
to Britain. Yet news of the West's reaction to drug smuggling
seldom reaches the slums of the cities where, for very little
financial reward, the poor and vulnerable are recruited.
Distorted vision
Third World women are not the prime movers in the drug trade.
They are the poorest citizens of the poorest nations in the
world. The narrow, distorted vision of justice that
concentrates efforts to restrict the trade in drugs on law
enforcement denies the culpability of the powerful nations
which control the rules of world trade.
The booms and slumps engineered by the free market, the
dumping of western surpluses and the greed of western
industrialists have destroyed the agricultural base of many
Third World economies. Countries which were encouraged to
borrow and to concentrate on the production of cash crops have
experienced the failure of one agricultural formula after
another - from rubber to tobacco, and then to coffee.
In any case, with high interest rates on debts, an
increase in exports hardly makes a dent in massive trade
deficits. In many ways coca, poppies and marijuana are the
only consistently valuable commodity a nation has.
Who are these women?
In 1991, women convicted of drug smuggling represented 20% of
the UK's female prison population. Many of them are from
Colombia, Bolivia, Nigeria, Gambia and the Caribbean nations
which have been systematically despoiled by the world economic
order. Of the Third World women drug couriers interviewed
in a Ho