The rights of children accompanying their incarcerated mothers: a critical assessment of the adequacy of prisons law in Tanzania

This study presents a review of prisons laws with regard to legal protection of children accompanying their incarcerated mothers. This becomes important due to the fat that prisons are not designed to accommodate children; yet prison laws in Tanzania allow lactating babies to accompany their convicted mothers. It is observed that separation of a child from his/her mother at an early age is detrimental to the child a fact which creates an egg and chicken situation. On the one hand if a lactating baby is separated from its mother it can suffer irreparable mental and psychological damage; on the other hand, the law must take its course where a lactating mother has committed a crime. The crux of the matter is to strike a balance between the demands of the law against convicted mothers and the rights of children with regard to the rightful safe environment for physical and mental development of lactating children of convicted mothers. In this study the author conducted literature review and field study in the endeavor to give a scholarly discussion of the issue of the rights of children accompanying their incarcerated mothers. Interviews were conducted with prisons staff, convicted pregnant women and mothers whose children were living in two prisons. The research survey revealed that there is inadequate consideration to the situation of both children living in prison with their convicted mothers and pregnant inmates. It also unveiled the fact that neither the Constitution nor the prisons laws recognize the best interests of the child. Field finds divulged that children accompanying their convicted mothers do not feature in the prison food scale, have no separate beddings and their treatment differs from one prison to another. The study recommends alternatives to incarceration such as Community Sentence for minor offences, establishment of Mother and Baby Units for convicts whose offences are serious, and revision of existing plies, laws and regulations to meet the needs of children living in prison with their mothers.