"Hey! - You nr. 312.  Get your fat arse in the air again and continue working!  The landowner is not paying us for looking at your pretty face!"

When Sandra, 42, after discovering her husbands affair with his secretary, asked for a divorce and demanded to get the custody of the children, she hadn´t realized, which powerfull friends he had.

Susan Woodham´s last wish, before she was lead to the rope, was not a tasty meal with expensive wine.   No! - She knew, she wouldn´t be able to eat it, with the few rotten teeth she had left.  Instead she asked for nail polish and a lipstick.  She would try to look like a woman again for a last  time.

 It had been her first trip as a stewardess on the  international air services.  A passenger asked the pretty and helpful young woman to carry a heavy bag for him.  When the customs officers stopped her, he was nowhere to be seen. 

Five years she spend in chains in the damp and dark concrete cell under the police station, resisting daily beatings, humiliations and hunger, before she finally confessed.

"Mrs. Jameson! - You have a good case, but you have to pay more now, if you want me to carry on! " 

43 year old Ellen Jameson listen in despair to her lawyer, as he again demands more money.  She is broke.  Durring the last two years, she has used all she had got or could loan on lawyer bills. 

Her arrest had to begine with only been a misunderstanding.  In connection with she wanted to purchase a holiday apartment, the seller suddenly wanted more money, than they had agreed on.  She refused to pay.  He called the police, and then a lot of things happened.  Now she is facing a very long prison term for fraud in this foreign country. 
 

While been lead back to the prison, after having hugged her parents and little sister goodby, trying to comfort them, telling them it was not so bad in prison, Henrietta can´t hold her tears back anymore.
  
 After having waited 3 years in fear and despair in a dark, overcrowded and faul prison cell, her case had finally been  brought before the court.  Forced to plead guilty to avoid a death sentence, she was convicted to spend the rest of her life in prison.

It had been a terrible mistake. While the family had been standing in line at the checking-in at the airport, on their way home from a sunny holiday trip 3 years ago,  a young woman had accidently bumped into Henrietta, apologized and walked away.  When Henrietta reached for her passport in her handbag, she discovered a small plastic bag with some white powder, and took it up, trying to see what is was.  A police man on guard saw her with it, and she was immediately arrested.

"Come on, get moving!"

Julie feels it degrading, as she goes to work, panty and bra less under the stiff uniform, on the first day after her conviction to 20 years of hard labour. 

Only three weeks ago she felt on the top of the world.  She had gone to Descaza to join a beauty contest, and to her big surprise, she had won!  But her life as a beauty queen hadn´t lasted long.  Two hours later the police arrived and "found" a bag containing some white powder in her room.  She was immediately disqualified from the contest, and the girl friend of a important local businessman, became the new beauty queen instead.

When Mr. and Mrs. Sjogren  flew home to sweden after their vacation, it was with out their grown-up daughter Karin.  For the next many years they would only be allowed to see her half an hour once a year, and only if they can afford the long trip, the hotel bills and the bribes to the prison officers for letting them see her.

 Being a little of a nerd, she still in the age of 30 lived at home with her parents, while studying at the university, and had never had a real boy friend.  This made her an easy victim, when a handsome young man addressed her at the hotel bar.  It didn´t take long to persuade her to bring a parcel with her home to Sweden.  It was a birthday present to someone he knew there, he told her!

"Have you missed me baby?  Ahh! - I know you have!
  Don´t worry!  Ahmet  here will take very good care of you all night!"

Stiff of lack of exercise and weak of hunger, Susanne follows him to his office.  She knows what awaits her.  She has lived through it every time Ahmet has had the night watch for the past 3 years.  All the guards has their favourite girl, which they fetch from the basement cells at night to fill up time, on the otherwise boring night watches.  First Ahmet will "warm her up"  slapping her hard for about half an hour with the thick leader strap, and then?  
 
It feels like an eternity since Susanne together with her girlfriend Heather, were stopped by the local police, as they on a holiday trip drove through the small remote Turkish town in a rented car.  Heather was now one of the other guards favourites. 
 

"Come on - Give us a smile miss. Halloway! 
-What went through your mind, when you heard the judge give you no less than 45 years in prison? 
 -What do your colleagues in the news agency say?
-Did they know, you were useing drugs?"

Vivi Halloway, a 28 year old journalist, now finds herself on the other side of the camera lenses, after the police found a package which they said contained cocaine, in her hotel room.

Somehow she knew, it was her own fault.  She had been warned against asking questions, which did not please the government in this foreign country.

The newspaper, in which she was employed, had done nothing to help her.
 

"Come Linda - Please don´t cry!   We couldn´t have expected anything else.  As long as we have each other, everything will be allright ! "

44 year old Susan Hamilton tries to comfort her friend, 43 year old Linda Rawlings, while they wait for the transport back to prison. 
After serving 25 years of a life sentence in a foul South Asian prison, for trying to smoke marihuana on the beach on a holiday trip, when they were teenagers, they have been in court, to have their cases reviewed.  

As in fare the most of these cases, it only took the judging committee five minutes, to turn down the two Australian women´s petition for mercy.
 

Untill only a month ago Renate from Germany had felt herself on the top of the world.  Now she feel sick and dirty after spending another night as the only woman in the overcrowded holding cell under the police station.  At last she will recieve her sentence today.  She has been told it will be life imprisonment, but now she will be transfered to a womans prison.  If that will be any better !

The 23 year old very beautiful blond, had been chosen to participate in a world tour with a  fashion show.
Arriving to Descaza she  accidently took a wrong suitcase from the baggage conveyer belt, instead of her own.  Some customs officers accosted her and demanded to see, what it contained.  They quickly found a bag with some powder in it.

They didn´t believe her, when she crying tried to explain, that it wasn`t her´s.

"Now curtsy for your husband and miss Jameson!
You must be very grateful, they are willing to offer some of their time visiting you, Jane!"

Jane fears for, what is going to happen next.  What have they thought up this time?  She only knows it is going to inflict her pain and degradation.  

She had married him two years ago.  Young and naive she had been very much in love.  Too late she had relized, that he only had married her for her money.  He had a corrupt doctor as a friend, which he paid to declare her for incurable mentally sick, and had her locked up in a mental hospital.

Now and then her dear husband and his mistress, that bimbo to Susy Jameson, pays her a visit.  Then they amuse themselvs by paying the wardress to inflict  punishments on her, while they watch.  
 

"What do you say?  You can have her for 10$ an hour, and you may do with her, all what you like!" 

For some years ago I joined a group of development aids workers.  While we were staying for some days in a small remote  town, a police officer suddently came and offered us this girl.  We were surprised and at first we didn´t know what to say.  After we had commed to our sences again, we of course said no thanks, and with a grunt the officer turned about, gave the girl a hard jerk with the rope, and walked back to the police station pulling her after him. 

Our landlord told us afterwards, the local police had about a dozen foreign women from Europe locked up in the basement cells under the police station.  He also told us it was bad, we had not rented her.  Now she would be punished very hard, because we had rejected her.
 

"English whore - You suck me tonight!"

Lisa feels somehow honoured, that she still after 15 years as a hard labor convict, with her hair cropped short, and with her battered face and body, can arouse a man.

People who now sees Lisa Hamilton, can hardly imagine that the lifer with the toughened and hard appearance, once in high school, besides receiving very good grads, had been elected to be the prettiest girl of the year three years in a row.

The third time was only a few weeks before Lisa together with a new boyfriend, she had met at the graduation party, went to Descaza on a sommer holiday to relax and have some fun, before she should begine at the university.   At the airport on the way home he asked, if she could carry one of his bags.  
 When the customs officers stopped her, her boyfriend was nowhere to be seen
 

Post cart home.
 

She was a pampered celebrity. 
She thought, becouse she was rich, she could do anything she liked.

She still has red nails, but it will be many years before she will be allowed nail polish again!

Samantha  has all day been bussy digging up potatos.  

It all happened on her first day as a teacher at the school.  One of the boys from the upper grades, pinched her hard in her bottom.  As a reflex she slapped his cheek.  She should never have done that.  It was the mayor´s son.

She has been on the chain gang for six months now, and the mayor will see to, she stays there!

Jane wanted to spend her summer vacation from the university as an aid worker in the third world.

One day a group of  soldiers simply seized her in the street, and drove her to a stone quarry, where she was fettered and put to work.

Nobody outside the prison camp ever heard from her again.
 

Sweaty and smelly, after another long day in the fields, Simone, Claire and Evelyn walks back to the prison huts for the night.

Simone was an exchange student from France.  To see the country she  leased a car and drove a trip down through the Southern States.  In a small town she got arrested for speeding.  Instead of giving her a fine, the sheriff send her to a prison farm not telling her for how long.  

Simone has now been working as nr. 516 for five months.  Evelyn, nr. 196, has told her, she is from New York, and she also got arrested by the same sheriff for speeding.  It was now five years ago!

Two new forced labors freshly arrived and dressed in their future clothes.

There will be no fancy dresses or make up for them in the next many years.

Another long hot day is soon over, but for young Susan there will be little rest.  A long night as the only white woman in the over crowded prison huts awaits.
 

"I am sorry, your appeal  was rejected mrs. Limestone.  Don´t worry about my fee.  Your ex-husband has paid me."
 

"If you work very hard, you maybe will be released in 30 to 40 years!"

When 31 year old Sally Greenwood two months ago flew to Shanghai to take over as the company´s first female branch manager in China, they forgot to tell her about the ongoing investigations for tax fraud.

At the trial the prosecutor and the company´s lawyers, made her take all the blame, even there were no evidence in her guilt.

Tina believed there was a birthday present in the small package, her boy friend gave her.   He had told her not to open it, before her 19´th birthday, which was two days  after they should have returned home from their holiday trip to Thailand. 

To the airport police he claimed, he had never seen her before, and he was released time enough to catch the plane home.

Now,  after been in custody for 14 months, Tina is finally taken before a judge.

She is lucky if she gets off with life imprisonment

Young Shilpa, an Indian university student arrested during an unauthorized demostration in Amritsar and condemned to hard labour.

 Despite the efforts of her wealthy relatives, she has to serve like the other women convict: barefoot and heavily shackled.