Anneleri ile Ceza İnfaz Kurumlarında Kalan 0-6 Yaş Çocukların Yaşam Koşullarının ve Deneyimlerinin Annelerinin Bakış Açısıyla Araştırılması

Abstract

It is known that during early childhood the traumatic living conditions and experiences of children who stay in the prison with their mothers have lasting effects on the development of children. A psychosocial intervention program was implemented in seven womens’ prisons in Turkey by a non-governmental organization in order to support mothers’ relationships with their children between the ages of 0-6 whom stayed with them in prison. The qualitative data of the research consists of the phenomenological analysis of the documents containing the written records of the mothers' narratives during the group sharings carried out with 68 mothers and 70 children. As a result of the analyzes, the themes of "the traumatic physical conditions and socio-cultural environment of the prison for children", "being a mother in prison: guilt, inadequacy", "growing up in prison conditions" and "vicious circle of transgenerational violence" passed from mothers to their children have been reached. The narratives of mothers clearly reveal the traumatic physical and social conditions of prisons and the negative effects of these conditions on the development of children. The results of the research draw attention to the necessity of urgently addressing the conditions of children staying with their mothers in prisons, making a comprehensive individual assessment for each child, taking into account the best interests of the child, and preferring detention measures or different practices for pregnant women and those who have children.