Sharjah: Children play happily with toys and colourful photographs adorn the walls. At first glance, this could be a nursery anywhere in the city — except for the view of the high wall outside.
The children in this nursery are at the Dar Al Aman child care centre and their mothers are all serving jail terms.
Women prisoners in Sharjah are being given the opportunity to bond with their children in this facility on Wasit Road, which in turn helps them put their lives back on track, Gulf News learnt during a recent tour of the facility. The nursery is available for children ages two years and under.
Gulf News was taken on an exclusive tour of the jail nursery, located on Wasit Road in Sharjah. The nursery currently has 10 children, four boys and six girls, ages two months to two years.
The facility is in a separate building from the main jail. It’s a cheerful place with pink and blue cradles and beds, coloured curtains and patterned blankets. In addition to a play area, there is a medical centre and education centre.
There are no bars in the bedrooms.
There are stand-in mothers who live at the nursery, in addition to five Filipino caregivers.
Four drivers are on hand to transport the children to various entertainment zones and malls.
At the entrance the administration has decorated the walls with brightly coloured photos of children admitted to the nursery at the time of its launch and who have since left the facility with their mothers.
Strong bond
Dar Al Aman Nursery was inaugurated in 2008 by Sharjah Police in coordination with the social services department to provide special care for abandoned children and children of female inmates in the jail.
Mariam Esmail, director of the Dar Al Aman Nursery, told Gulf News that mothers can spend as much time as they want there with their children.
“Jail nurseries will most likely make mothers commit less crime. We provide the mothers with the social services they need; we study their files, the conditions they lived in as well as their motives for committing the crime in order to see what is best for their children and who will raise them after they reach the age of two when they are moved to the Social Service Centre for Children,” she said.
Mariam added that the jail nursery also provides education and health care programmes.
Pregnant women also receive the utmost care and are transferred to hospital during childbirth.
The daily needs of the children such as clothing, nutrition and the supervision of breastfeeding are taken care of.
Colonel Khalifa Mohammad Al Merri, acting director of the Sharjah Punitive Establishments Department, told Gulf News: “Dar Al Aman ensures that the new generation will grow up in a decent atmosphere.”
Case studies
An Asian housemaid, serving a two-year jail term for adultery, visits her six-month-old son at the Dar Al Aman nursery regularly to check on him and breastfeed him.
Another Asian woman, who was caught living in the country illegally and who had an illicit relationship with a man, expressed happiness that her infant is being taken care of.