Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world, and lacks a functioning system to care for those who are unable to care for themselves. When a woman goes to prison, if there are no other family members to care for her children, these children either end up on the streets, at great risk of being trafficked or forced into child labor, or the children accompany their mother into prison where they face grave conditions: malnutrition, illness, violence, and squalor.
Nepal allows women prisoners to keep the child in jail and the jail authorities are required by law to pay for their education in care. Children are locked behind razor wire, innocent victims of a prison system that often incarcerates the infant sons and daughters of women who are jailed.
