Redefining the Invisible Victims of Incarceration: Survival Strategies of Young Girls of Incarcerated Mothers in Ghana

The number of incarcerated mothers in Ghana has increased in the last few years, with the vulnerabilities of their children also increasing. Though much research has been carried out on children whose mothers have been incarcerated, their voices are often missing. Girls develop interpersonal relationships with their mothers when they start menstruating in order to learn more about their sexuality and how to perform adult roles in their homes and communities. The absence of mothers therefore causes emotional instabilities and engenders a number of risks in the lives of young girls. During maternal incarceration, most girls live with relatives or alone without any family support. Some family members abandon the children of their relatives who have been incarcerated due to the shame, stigma and legal issues surrounding incarceration. The child protection policy in Ghana does not address the needs of children whose mothers have been incarcerated. In the face of family and policy neglect, young girls depend on their creativities, friends and spiritual affiliations for survival. In this paper, I refer to these girls as ‘invisible victims’ because of their non-recognition by government policies and programmes such as the child and family welfare policy and the LEAP programme. Findings from this research revealed that these invisible victims become silent, stigmatized and suffer during maternal incarceration. Maternal incarceration has led to the truncation of some of these girls education and some have become single mothers in the process of fighting to leverage their vulnerabilities. Intergenerational poverty and child parenting are some cyclical deleterious effects of maternal incarceration thus it is recommended that policy makers and organisations should appreciate and recognize the struggles and vulnerabilities of these invisible victims and provide support such as extension of the current social protection programme (LEAP) to address their specific needs as right holders.