W

earing safety helmets and green vests, the prisoners of Denpasar Women’s Penitentiary in Kerobokan, Bali, have appeared different as of late.

Fifty-one women prisoners in Kerobokan received training on Oct. 9 to become construction workers. The penitentiary was among 12 penitentiaries across Indonesia that conducted construction worker training for prisoners, but what made it unique was that it was the only women’s penitentiary to do so.

The program was jointly launched by the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s Correctional Facilities Directorate General and the Public Works and Housing Ministry’s Construction Directorate General.

Denpasar Women’s Penitentiary chief warden Lili said the training was held to follow up on a memorandum of understanding between the two ministries.

“I am happy to be a construction worker,” said a woman prisoner who requested anonymity.

The trainees hope that the new skills and certificates that they gained from the training will help them find a new job immediately after their release from the penitentiary.

Slamet Prihantara, the correctional division head of the Law and Human Rights Ministry’s Bali representative office, told the trainees during the launch of the training that certificates would be handed out based on merit.

“You will only get a certificate if you are serious in the training. This is for your own interest, your own future,” he said.

Prihantara said the program aimed to transform prisoners into skilled workers who could assimilate into society immediately after regaining freedom.

Lili added that, beyond preparing the inmates for a new life, the prison management also aimed to break the taboo that women can only do “feminine jobs”.

“Here in the women’s penitentiary, we do not only teach them to sew, dance or cook. They can do more, including jobs at a construction site. This is what we call gender equality. Women can do more things [than what may be expected],” Lili added.

The training program at the Denpasar Women’s Penitentiary focused on two skills: wall painting and landscaping. The two skills were apparently what the inmates wanted to learn the most.

“Some of them have displayed talent in gardening, because they were used to spruce up our small garden every day. Some of them also made graffiti artwork on the prison walls. All of them are very talented,” Lili said.

A senior official at the Public Works and Housing Ministry’s Construction Directorate General, Catherine Sihombing, said more than 2,000 prisoners from across the country had been trained in the program, which was carried out in two phases.

“The first phase was carried out earlier this year. So these women prisoners participated in the second phase,” Catherine said, adding that the ministries planned to continue the program to cover more inmates in different penitentiaries across the country.

The certificates that the trainees received will be valid for a maximum of three years. Therefore, only inmates who are scheduled to be released in two years or less were selected for the training.

Denpasar Women’s Penitentiary, currently home to some 233 inmates, opened recently in Bali. The penitentiary used to be the women’s block of Kerobokan Penitentiary, the biggest and most crowded penitentiary on the resort island. The women’s block was expanded and subsequently separated from the main prison compound, which is now designated for male inmates.