Still

For the last 7 years I have been visiting a Children’s Remand in Kenya as a volunteer with the Sophia Foundation for Children. The center is supposed to be a sort of boarding school for children awaiting trial and judgement in criminal cases. In actuality, this home is more like a run-down, unsanitary prison than a school. Supplies of water are commonly inadequate and clothes and bedding are left soiled. Provisions for the recreational and educational needs of the children are almost nonexistent. Children spend their days even years confined in a tiny compound with many hours locked in their dorms, with their only activity being working or eating. Severe overcrowding, leads to children sleeping two to a bed. Under Kenyan law there are no limits on the period within which an accused must be tried, nor are there limits on how long they can be held in remand. What makes the reality of the Remand even more painful is that the majority of the children there are accused of doing nothing more than stealing food. Some haven’t even committed a crime but find themselves there simply because the authorities do not have anywhere else to take them; girls who fled from home to save themselves from genital mutilation or other forms of abuse, children abandoned in the streets as young as 5 years old. They live in limbo in a place which provides no education, no stimulation, no recreation or hope. A silent place where time stands still and their childhood is put on hold. My series, Still, aims to raise awareness about the harsh conditions these children have to endure both before and after their arrest and about the stillness of a place that should otherwise be filled with the vivacity and joy of children.