She has never left home

Home happens to be a jail cell in Afghanistan. Meena, who is now 11, was born there, nursed there and weaned there. She has spent her entire life, including that in utero, in prison and will probably spend the rest of her childhood there as well. She is there because her mother is a convicted serial killer serving a life sentence. Afghanistan allows her to keep her daughter with her until she turns 18. Meena has no idea what the world outside the walls looks like.

Meena is not the only child in this prison; she is one of 36 children jailed with their mothers. It is estimated that there are hundreds of imprisoned Afghan children whose only crime is having a convicted mother. There is a program that runs orphanages for children whose mothers are imprisoned, but the women have to agree to let their sons and daughters be taken, and the program does not cover many areas of Afghanistan.

There are some amenities in prison. The women’s cells are arranged around a spacious courtyard, shaded by mulberry trees, and the children have free rein of it. There is a set of rusting, homemade swings, monkey bars and slides that end in muddy puddles. A schoolroom is in one of the cells, with a white board and a mixture of benches and chairs, seating 16 children at eight desks. A single teacher looks after three grades, first through third, an hour a day for each grade; at age 11, Meena has reached only the second grade.