by Olga Heaven, The Weekly Gleaner (UK ), 18/04/01
At the moment there are over 350 Jamaican women in UK prisons, 60 per cent of the foreign national women currently held here, mostly for smuggling drugs into the country. Despite harsh sentences of up to 15 years the women keep coming in ever-greater numbers.
Most of these [...]

IT’s not an everyday occurrence to sit with someone whose work involves strengthening the minds and bodies of Jamaican women at a time when they need it the most. Olga Heaven, director and founding member of the Hibiscus Foundation, has reached out to Jamaican women serving time in prisons in the United Kingdom and has [...]

Our support for EU women project focuses on the diverse needs of women from the EU arising from complex EU legislation around resettlement and integration.
Our EU Women Project Worker Sabine Zanker runs workshops and groups in conjunction with specialist advisers in various prisons to provide EU women with specific advice and information. These groups are [...]

BACKGROUND
The location for the second conference on Foreign National Women in UK Prisons is Jamaica, the Caribbean island of approximately eleven thousand square kilometres, with a population of 2.7 million, a median age of 26 years, of whom 30% are under fourteen. Despite its reputation as a paradise island, Jamaica is home to high levels [...]

Cumberland Lodge, The Great Park, Windsor
Overcrowding affects every aspect of a prison regime, reducing safety and inhibiting efforts at resettlement and rehabilitation. Despite a massive increase in prison places in recent years, chronic overcrowding continues to be the most damaging feature of the prison estate.
This conference will:

Identify the factors that [...]

Hibiscus provides emotional and practical support to Foreign National, EU National and BMER women (Black & Minority Ethnic  and / or Refugee Women, including women seeking asylum). We help women contact and maintain contacts with their families and children.
We ensure they understand the British Criminal Justice System and their rights within it and that all [...]