What I learned serving time for a crime I didn't commit | Teresa Njoroge

When I heard those bars

slam hard,

I knew it was for real.

I feel confused.

I feel betrayed.

I feel overwhelmed.

I feel silenced.

What just happened?

How could they send me here?

I don't belong here.

How could they make such a huge mistake

without any repercussions whatsoever to their actions?

I see large groups of women

in tattered uniforms

surrounded by huge walls and gates,

enclosed by iron barbed wires,

and I get hit by an awful stench,

and I ask myself,

how did I move

from working in the respected financial banking sector,

having worked so hard in school,

to now being locked up

in the largest correctional facility

for women in Kenya?

My first night

at Langata Women Maximum Security Prison

was the toughest.

In January of 2009,

I was informed that I had handled a fraudulent transaction unknowingly

at the bank where I worked.

I was shocked, scared and terrified.

I would lose a career that I loved passionately.

But that was not the worst.

It got even worse than I could have ever imagined.

I got arrested,

maliciously charged

and prosecuted.

The absurdity of it all was the arresting officer

asking me to pay him 10,000 US dollars

and the case would disappear.

I refused.

Two and a half years on,

in and out of courts,

fighting to prove my innocence.

It was all over the media,

in the newspapers, TV, radio.

They came to me again.

This time around, said to me,

"If you give us 50,000 US dollars,

the judgement will be in your favor,"

irrespective of the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever

that I had any wrongdoing

on the charges that I was up against.

I remember the events

of my conviction

six years ago

as if it were yesterday.

The cold, hard face of the judge

as she pronounced my sentence

on a cold Thursday morning

for a crime that I hadn't committed.

I remember holding

my three-month-old beautiful daughter

whom I had just named Oma,

which in my dialect means "truth and justice,"

as that was what I had longed so much for

all this time.

I dressed her in her favorite purple dress,

and here she was, about to accompany me

to serve this one-year sentence

behind bars.

The guards did not seem sensitive to the trauma

that this experience was causing me.

My dignity and humanity disappeared

with the admission process.

It involved me being searched for contrabands,

changed from my ordinary clothes

to the prison uniform,

forced to squat on the ground,

a posture that I soon came to learn

would form the routine

of the thousands of searches,

number counts,

that lay ahead of me.

The women told me,

"You'll adjust to this place.

You'll fit right in."

I was no longer referred to as Teresa Njoroge.

The number 415/11 was my new identity,

and I soon learned that was the case with the other women

who we were sharing this space with.

And adjust I did to life on the inside:

the prison food,

the prison language,

the prison life.

Prison is certainly no fairytale world.

What I didn't see come my way

was the women and children

whom we served time and shared space with,

women who had been imprisoned

for crimes of the system,

the corruption that requires a fall guy,

a scapegoat,

so that the person who is responsible

could go free,

a broken system that routinely vilifies the vulnerable,

the poorest amongst us,

people who cannot afford to pay bail

or bribes.

And so we moved on.

As I listened to story after story

of these close to 700 women

during that one year in prison,

I soon realized that crime

was not what had brought these women to prison,

most of them,

far from it.

It had started with the education system,

whose supply and quality is not equal for all;

lack of economic opportunities

that pushes these women to petty survival crimes;

the health system,

social justice system,

the criminal justice system.

If any of these women,

who were mostly from poor backgrounds,

fall through the cracks

in the already broken system,

the bottom of that chasm is a prison,

period.

By the time I completed my one-year sentence

at Langata Women Maximum Prison,

I had a burning conviction

to be part of the transformation

to resolve the injustices

that I had witnessed

of women and girls

who were caught up in a revolving door

of a life in and out of prison

due to poverty.

After my release,

I set up Clean Start.

Clean Start is a social enterprise

that seeks to give these women and girls

a second chance.

What we do is we build bridges for them.

We go into the prisons, train them,

give them skills, tools and support

to enable them to be able to change their mindsets,

their behaviors and their attitudes.

We also build bridges into the prisons

from the corporate sector --

individuals, organizations

that will partner with Clean Start

to enable us to provide employment,

places to call home,

jobs, vocational training,

for these women, girls,

boys and men,

upon transition back into society.

I never thought

that one day

I would be giving stories

of the injustices that are so common

within the criminal justice system,

but here I am.

Every time I go back to prison,

I feel a little at home,

but it is the daunting work

to achieve the vision

that keeps me awake at night,

connecting the miles to Louisiana,

which is deemed as the incarceration capital of the world,

carrying with me stories

of hundreds of women

whom I have met within the prisons,

some of whom are now embracing their second chances,

and others who are still on that bridge of life's journey.

I embody a line

from the great Maya Angelou.

"I come as one,

but I stand as 10,000."

(Applause)

For my story is singular,

but imagine with me

the millions of people

in prisons today,

yearning for freedom.

Three years post my conviction

and two years post my release,

I got cleared by the courts of appeal

of any wrongdoing.

(Applause)

Around the same time,

I got blessed with my son,

whom I named Uhuru,

which in my dialect means "freedom."

(Applause)

Because I had finally gotten the freedom

that I so longed for.

I come as one,

but I stand as 10,000,

encouraged by the hard-edged hope

that thousands of us have come together

to reform and transform the criminal justice system,

encouraged that we are doing our jobs

as we are meant to do them.

And let us keep doing them

with no apology.

Thank you.

(Applause)