‘I’ve lost the freedom to be there with my child for Christmas’

This Christmas most of the prisoners in Dochas will spend the family season inside. For the children of women inside, it's distressing. As part of the Storybook Mams project, women choose a book to read to a child they are separated from, and make a video to send them.

Here three of the women who made Storybook videos this year - Annie, Angelique and Manie - are talking about being in priosn and apart from their children. “I would have missed a good part of her life. Like, most of her life. I understand she’s hurtin’ in her own little way. This is just so as she can see me and see what I am like now.”

“I don’t like her coming up to the prison because she gets very upset after visits, so I’d rather just let her know I love her, and the phone calls.”