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Release after years of imprisonment is not just a long-awaited moment of freedom, but also the beginning of a new,...

In penal colonies, a woman’s basic need to look neat and maintain her human dignity becomes a pretext for regular...

Imprisonment is not just the deprivation of physical freedom. For women in penal colonies, it is primarily the systematic deprivation...

Instead of the claimed “rehabilitation,” the Belarusian penitentiary system systematically destroys an individual’s everyday independence. Strict control, the breakdown of...

When people talk about Belarusian women’s penal colonies, the imagination pictures endless gray weekdays, monotonous work in the sewing industrial...

Resocialization is one of the key official goals of the modern penitentiary system in Belarus. In practice, however, strict limitations...

Assessments of food quality in the Belarusian women’s correctional colony vary significantly among former prisoners. For some, the food in...

In the Belarusian penitentiary system, there is a so-called “Social Adaptation School” – a program intended to help people prepare...

What happens when an incarcerated woman needs medical care? In a Belarusian penal colony, even an attempt to see a...

There is a popular myth that prisoners in penal colonies live and eat at taxpayers’ expense. However, the reality is...