BBC 100 Women: The fearless nun inside 'hell on earth' [BBC]

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BBC 100 Women: The fearless nun inside 'hell on earth’

For more than 17 years, a Catholic nun named Neyda Rojas has been serving God in a place that many describe as hell on earth - a Venezuelan prison.

For decades, penitentiaries here have been criticised by human rights organisations for allowing serious human rights violations to take place behind their walls.

Although the government has introduced reforms to improve living conditions, some Venezuelan prisons are still among the most violent and overcrowded in Latin America.

None of that has stopped this missionary, who belongs to the Mercedarian Order, help teach inmates some of the basics of life, like literacy.

"I’m very happy when they learn to read and write. I can see their excitement.

“It also means they can understand what official documents say about them and their trials”, the 52-year-old nun said.

’Face of God’

“I have always seen the face of God in their faces”, she said on our way to Venezuela’s General Penitentiary (PGV) in Guarico state, a three-hour drive away from the capital Caracas.

We accompanied Sister Neyda to one of her workshops after the BBC was granted rare access to the prison.

Although the exterior of the prison is guarded by the Venezuela’s National Guard and it has a prison director and staff from the Ministry of Penitentiary Affairs, effectively it’s the inmates who are in charge on the inside.

The prisoners have weapons, a clear leadership structure and a strict set of rules.

Those who do not follow these rules often pay with their lives, human rights groups and former inmates say.
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Overcrowding**

The PGV was built to hold 750 prisoners but at the time of our visit there were around 3,000 inmates.

More at: bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-34931359