When I heard those bars slam hard, I knew it was for real. I feel confused. I feel betrayed. I feel overwhelmed. I feel silenced.
当我听到那些铁栅栏 重重地关上的时候, 我知道这不是做梦。 我感到迷茫。 我感到被背叛了。 我感到喘不过气。 我感觉被禁言了。
What just happened? How could they send me here? I don't belong here. How could they make such a huge mistake without any repercussions whatsoever to their actions? I see large groups of women in tattered uniforms surrounded by huge walls and gates, enclosed by iron barbed wires, and I get hit by an awful stench, and I ask myself, how did I move from working in the respected financial banking sector, having worked so hard in school, to now being locked up in the largest correctional facility for women in Kenya?
刚才发生了什么? 他们怎么会把我送到这里? 我根本不属于这里啊。 他们怎么能犯下如此大的错误, 却不用为自己的 行为付出任何代价? 我看到许多女性, 她们身着破烂的制服, 被关在高墙大门之内, 受困在铁刺围栏之中, 然后我被一阵恶臭惊醒, 我问自己, 我究竟是如何 从从事着一份体面的 金融银行业工作, 曾经在学校中用功读书, 转变到如今身陷囹圄, 不得不呆在这个肯尼亚最大的 女子监狱的?
My first night at Langata Women Maximum Security Prison was the toughest. In January of 2009, I was informed that I had handled a fraudulent transaction unknowingly at the bank where I worked. I was shocked, scared and terrified. I would lose a career that I loved passionately. But that was not the worst. It got even worse than I could have ever imagined. I got arrested, maliciously charged and prosecuted. The absurdity of it all was the arresting officer asking me to pay him 10,000 US dollars and the case would disappear. I refused. Two and a half years on, in and out of courts, fighting to prove my innocence. It was all over the media, in the newspapers, TV, radio. They came to me again. This time around, said to me, "If you give us 50,000 US dollars, the judgement will be in your favor," irrespective of the fact that there was no evidence whatsoever that I had any wrongdoing on the charges that I was up against.
我在兰加塔 女子最高安全级别监狱 度过的第一个夜晚 是最难熬的。 2009年的1月, 我被告知我在银行 工作的时候无意中经手了 一笔诈骗交易。 我当时感到十分震惊、 害怕并且恐惧。 我会因此而失去十分热爱的事业。 但那还不是最糟糕的。 事情远比我想象的更糟。 我被逮捕了, 受到了恶意的指控 和起诉。 最荒唐的是那个逮捕我的警官, 居然要求我支付给他一万美金, 他们就可以撤诉。 我拒绝了。 于是在接下来的两年半时间, 我不停地进出法庭, 竭尽全力想要证明我的清白。 这件事在媒体上被广泛报道, 报纸、电视、广播。 他们再一次找到了我。 这次他们说的是, “如果你给我们5万美金, 最终的审判将会站在你这边。” 他们完全不顾这样一个事实, 那就是他们根本没有证据 证明我做错了什么, 针对我的指控根本不成立。
I remember the events of my conviction six years ago as if it were yesterday. The cold, hard face of the judge as she pronounced my sentence on a cold Thursday morning for a crime that I hadn't committed. I remember holding my three-month-old beautiful daughter whom I had just named Oma, which in my dialect means "truth and justice," as that was what I had longed so much for all this time. I dressed her in her favorite purple dress, and here she was, about to accompany me to serve this one-year sentence behind bars.
我记得 六年前, 我的审判结果 就如发生在昨日一般。 在一个寒冷的星期四上午, 当法官针对我从未犯过的罪名 宣布我被判有罪的时候, 我看到了她冰冷残酷的脸庞。 我记得当我抱着 我三个月大的漂亮的女儿, 我刚给她起名Oma, 这个名字在我们方言中的 意思是“真相和正义”, 因为那是我长久以来一直渴望的 东西啊。 我给她穿上她最爱的紫色裙子, 她将陪伴我在监狱里 在监狱里忍受这一年的 冤刑。
The guards did not seem sensitive to the trauma that this experience was causing me. My dignity and humanity disappeared with the admission process. It involved me being searched for contrabands, changed from my ordinary clothes to the prison uniform, forced to squat on the ground, a posture that I soon came to learn would form the routine of the thousands of searches, number counts, that lay ahead of me.
那些狱警对我所遭受的 痛苦丝毫不在意, 他们不知道这段经历 使我失去了什么。 我的尊严和人性随着 入狱的程序一并消失了。 我被搜身检查有没有携带违禁品, 脱下了我平常的服装, 换上了囚服, 还被要求蹲在地上, 后来我意识到 这个动作 将是日后我将面对的数千次搜身, 报数时候的 常规动作。
The women told me, "You'll adjust to this place. You'll fit right in." I was no longer referred to as Teresa Njoroge. The number 415/11 was my new identity, and I soon learned that was the case with the other women who we were sharing this space with.
有位女士对我说, “你会适应这个地方的, 你会融入进去的。” 没有人再叫我特雷莎 · 恩乔罗格, 编号415/11 成为了我新的身份, 我很快意识到这里的其他女性 都面临着同样的境遇。
And adjust I did to life on the inside: the prison food, the prison language, the prison life. Prison is certainly no fairytale world.
我确实适应了里面的生活: 监狱里的食物, 监狱里的语言, 监狱里的生活。 监狱当然不是童话世界。
What I didn't see come my way was the women and children whom we served time and shared space with, women who had been imprisoned for crimes of the system, the corruption that requires a fall guy, a scapegoat, so that the person who is responsible could go free, a broken system that routinely vilifies the vulnerable, the poorest amongst us, people who cannot afford to pay bail or bribes.
然而我没有意识到的是, 与我们一同服刑的 妇女和小孩, 那些为了这个体系的罪恶 在服刑的女人们, 成了那些腐败行为的 替罪羊, 这样才能让那些真正的罪犯 逍遥法外, 这个腐败的体系时常 污蔑我们当中 弱势的、贫穷的人们, 因为他们没有能力支付保释金 或者是贿赂金。
And so we moved on. As I listened to story after story of these close to 700 women during that one year in prison, I soon realized that crime was not what had brought these women to prison, most of them, far from it. It had started with the education system, whose supply and quality is not equal for all; lack of economic opportunities that pushes these women to petty survival crimes; the health system, social justice system, the criminal justice system. If any of these women, who were mostly from poor backgrounds, fall through the cracks in the already broken system, the bottom of that chasm is a prison, period.
所以我们只能接受现实。 在监狱服刑的一年中, 在听了差不多 700个女人的 相似的故事之后, 我知道那些罪行不是将 这些女人送进监狱的罪魁祸首, 事实上,她们中的大多数 都背着莫须有的罪名。 这一切要从教育系统说起, 教育资源及质量并不是 对所有人都公平的; 由于缺乏赚钱的机会, 女性往往被迫为了生存 去做一些小偷小摸的事情; 还有医疗系统, 社会司法体系, 刑事司法制度 (也都脱不了干系)。 这些女人 大都来自贫困的家庭, 如果她们不幸被这腐败的 系统盯上了, 迎接她们的深渊就是监狱, 这就是事实。
By the time I completed my one-year sentence at Langata Women Maximum Prison, I had a burning conviction to be part of the transformation to resolve the injustices that I had witnessed of women and girls who were caught up in a revolving door of a life in and out of prison due to poverty.
当我在兰加塔女子 最高安全级别监狱 服刑一年之后, 我的心中产生了一个坚定的信念, 而这个信念也成为了后来 改变这些不公正现象的 变革中的一部分。 我目睹了 妇女和年轻女孩们 被关在这个旋转门后, 进出监狱就成了 她们生活中的全部, 这一切都源于贫穷。
After my release, I set up Clean Start. Clean Start is a social enterprise that seeks to give these women and girls a second chance. What we do is we build bridges for them. We go into the prisons, train them, give them skills, tools and support to enable them to be able to change their mindsets, their behaviors and their attitudes. We also build bridges into the prisons from the corporate sector -- individuals, organizations that will partner with Clean Start to enable us to provide employment, places to call home, jobs, vocational training, for these women, girls, boys and men, upon transition back into society.
在我刑满释放之后, 我成立了Clean Start。 Clean Start 是一家社会企业, 旨在为这些妇女和年轻女性 提供第二次机会。 我们所做的就是为她们提供桥梁。 我们去监狱给她们提供培训, 教会她们技能, 为她们提供工作和支持, 希望借此改变她们的思维方式, 改变她们的行为和态度。 同时,我们也为 将会成为Clean Start的 合作伙伴的 企业、个人和组织 提供与监狱联系的机会, 并合作提供就业机会, 居住的地方, 工作和职业培训 让那些妇女、女孩, 男孩和成年男子们 能够成功适应重回社会的过程。
I never thought that one day I would be giving stories of the injustices that are so common within the criminal justice system, but here I am. Every time I go back to prison, I feel a little at home, but it is the daunting work to achieve the vision that keeps me awake at night, connecting the miles to Louisiana, which is deemed as the incarceration capital of the world, carrying with me stories of hundreds of women whom I have met within the prisons, some of whom are now embracing their second chances, and others who are still on that bridge of life's journey.
我从未想过 有一天, 我将会为人们讲述 那些刑事司法制度之内 如此常见的不公正的现象, 但是我做到了。 每次回到监狱的时候, 我竟然感觉像是回家了, 但这是一份令人生畏的工作, 想达成那个愿景的强烈希望 几乎让我每天都夜不能寐。 想想远在千里之外的 路易斯安那州, 那个被视为世界监禁之都的地方, 我背负着 我在监狱中遇见的 数百位女性的过去, 她们中的一些人现在正在 拥抱人生中的第二次机会, 另一些至今还处于桥梁的另一端, 经历她们人生的那一段故事。
I embody a line from the great Maya Angelou. "I come as one, but I stand as 10,000."
在这里我引用下 著名诗人Maya Angelou的一段诗。 “我只身前来, 却有千千万万的人与我并肩。”
(Applause)
(掌声)
For my story is singular, but imagine with me the millions of people in prisons today, yearning for freedom.
我的故事或许是个例, 但是请跟我一起想一想 如今在监狱中的 数百万的人们, 他们渴望自由。
Three years post my conviction and two years post my release, I got cleared by the courts of appeal of any wrongdoing.
在我被定罪的三年后, 被释放的两年后, 地区法院终于还给了我清白, 洗去了我的罪名。
(Applause)
(掌声)
Around the same time, I got blessed with my son, whom I named Uhuru, which in my dialect means "freedom."
大约在同一时间, 我有了一个儿子, 我给他起名Uhuru, Uhuru在我们的 方言中意味着“自由”。
(Applause)
(掌声)
Because I had finally gotten the freedom that I so longed for. I come as one, but I stand as 10,000, encouraged by the hard-edged hope that thousands of us have come together to reform and transform the criminal justice system, encouraged that we are doing our jobs as we are meant to do them. And let us keep doing them with no apology.
因为我最终获得了自由, 我梦寐以求的自由, 我只身前来, 却代表着千千万万的人们, 怀着坚定的信念, 千千万万的我们能够团结起来, 一起改变这个犯罪司法系统, 坚信我们在履行自己的天职, 因为我们注定要做这些事。 那就让我们继续做下去, 无需感到歉疚。
Thank you.
谢谢。
(Applause)
(掌声)