Inmates: Our families and friends have abandoned us

When one steps inside the doors of a remand, life as they knew it ceases to exist, says Pauline Njeri Mbugua.

“As a free citizen, I can engage in productive work. I can earn a living and feed myself.

I would have a social life and interact with family and friends. In here all that is gone,” Njeri says. At the point of arrest, Njeri was 56.

Her only child lived abroad. But she had other relatives in Kenya with whom she had close relationships.

Then something puzzling happened when she was arrested: her family abandoned her (or so she thought). “Suddenly it seemed like they did not want anything to do with me; they did not come to visit. I felt like they had already judged me and concluded that I was guilty,” she says.

It hurt her that the people she expected would provide much-needed shoulder to lean on would doubt her innocence.

It did not happen to Njeri alone. Her colleague, who did not wish to be named says: “When one is placed behind bars the automatic interpretation is you are guilty.

Therefore no one really wants to associate with you.”

At the time of her arrest she had a two-year-old son. Today her son is nine. “I learnt to lower expectations of my family because I realised I was the one getting hurt,” she says. Her family stopped visiting only months after she was jailed.

Had she been freed (either on bond or bail) she would probably be holding a job – she has a Sociology Degree. “I would be contributing positively to the economy and to my own wellbeing.

I would make money to pay my own lawyer who would see to it that my case is speedily handled,” she says.

A pastor who called in on Njeri convinced her family to visit her. And some relatives have visited in recent months.