Thais from all walks of life consider Mother’s Day as an important one in their general celebrations. So do inmates. They will celebrate Her Majesty the Queen’s birthday in the next few days and hope royal pardons will be granted for the occasion.
Nirjara Magar plays with her daughter Telma during one of the many brief visits the two have at the Central Women’s Correctional Institute. Nirjara is due to be released soon and she and Telma will return to their home country of Nepal. Nauvarat Suksamran
For Nirjara Magar, it will be the last time she joins other inmates to celebrate Mother’s Day behind bars. The 41-year-old Nepali inmate has a crucial task awaiting her after she is released from jail this month.
As a mother, the inmate is planning the future for her six-year-old daughter Telma (real name withheld), whom she took from Kathmandu with her to Thailand three years ago. But Nirjara was caught at Suvarnabhumi airport and charged with smuggling six kilograms of compressed cannabis into the country.
Nirjara was convicted on drug charges and sentenced to three years and six months in jail. She is due to be released on Aug 21. Her freedom draws nearer and she expects to return to her motherland with her daughter.
However, she is worried about what the future holds for her and Telma. Her relatives did not know of her situation after she flew to Thailand and ended up in prison. Worse still, she has had no chance to take care of her daughter after she was put in jail.
When Nirjara was arrested, Telma was less than three years old. The woman was sent to the Central Women’s Correctional Institute to serve her jail term and was not allowed to bring her child with her.
Her daughter was sent to Bunyathorn Home for children of female inmates as no relatives had contacted the prison to look after her. Later, she was placed in the care of a Pathum Thani-based Christian foundation where she has been looked after ever since.
During her detention, the Nepali inmate regularly met her daughter when foundation staff took Telma to see her mother in prison.
The girl later entered a kindergarten school near the welfare home. Welfare staff members took the girl to visit her mother occasionally.
When the girl was taken to meet her mother, she would cry and refused to stay close to her, as she had become a stranger. Tears would roll down Nirjara’s cheeks when she met her child, who would only give her a blank look.
Initially, Nirjara was unable to get along with other prisoners, said one warden. She rarely took part in any prison activity as she appeared to feel discouraged about life in a land totally alien to her and with no freedom.
Prison staff kept encouraging her to learn the Thai language. Unless she learned Thai she would not be able to communicate with her daughter who was growing up speaking Thai.
Determined to be able to communicate with Telma, Nirjara was driven to learning the Thai language. Telma, meanwhile, went to school with other Thai children living at the welfare centre.
Thai langauge became a bonding tool for the mother and her child.
“Whenever we take Telma to visit her mother, Nirjara often brings sweetmeat, drinking water and some toys for her daughter. She feeds Telma and plays with her,” the warden said. The prison also runs a kiosk selling snacks to inmates.
The prison’s library is also a place for female inmates to reunite with their children. Inmates are frequently allowed at least two to three hours with their loved ones. The Nepali woman began to speak in longer Thai sentences, while Telma gradually became more acquainted with her mother. The girl enjoyed playing with her mother even though they were only able to spend a few hours together once a month.
Telma was taught about her home country, her birthplace. She was regularly told that one day she would return to Nepal with her mother, who will be released soon.
“Pictures of towns and mountains in Nepal, traditional costumes and the culture of the native people there, the topography and a map of Nepal are what we have been teaching the girl about her country,” said a staff member at the Catholic foundation, which runs the child welfare home.
Nirjara said she earned money from providing body and facial massaging services for other female inmates during her free time. She earned between 30-50 baht a day from this service and she kept the money to buy sweetmeat and other goods for her daughter. She killed her time by knitting hair ties for Telma.
After returning home, she plans to rent a room while she looks for a job. She knows how to create hair styles, massage faces and bodies and do needlework.
Her family lives in a village in Kaskat city, an overnight bus journey away from Kathmandu.
“I don’t have my own house there. I have to stay with my younger sister and her husband,” said Nirjana, a divorcee. She also has one son with her divorced husband. She left her son with a neighbour before flying to Thailand with Telma. She has never heard from her neighbour or her son.
She has only her elder brother and her younger sister left in the family. None of her family members know that she was put in jail in Thailand.
“I will have to teach the Nepali language to my daughter so she will have no problem enrolling in school,” the woman said.
During the three years she has been behind bars she has come to terms with her plight in the prison.
Poverty and ignorance of the negative consequences of drug smuggling drove her to take the job of carrying the illicit drugs into Thailand as she thought she could make quick cash.
According to police, she was hired by a Nepali man identified only as Kumal to smuggle compressed cannabis into Thailand. The illicit drugs were destined for a customer in Bangkok’s Pratunam area.
The man had told her that someone would come to meet her when she arrived at Suvarnabhumi airport. She had been offered US$1,000 (32,000 baht) for the job.
However, she was caught shortly after arriving at the airport following a search of her luggage which contained the drugs.
The court sentenced her to three years and six months imprisonment. Initially her jail term would have ended in January next year. But as she had no criminal record, her sentence was cut to three years.
The mother’s release from jail is good news for her, but the daughter looks sad, said Joy (surname not given), a staff member at the child care centre who has been taking care of Telma. The girl kept crying when she learned she would have to leave Thailand with her mother soon.
“It was our duty to take care of her, give her love and warmth while her mother was in jail. As the girl’s mother will be released soon, we have no right to hold her back, even though we love her a lot,” Ms Joy said.
