Phoebe Asiyo: Prisons boss who saw humanity in prisoners' lives

The punch landed on my jaw, sending me reeling on the hard surface. I struggled to stand up but was met with a flurry of kicks and lashes. With my face pinned down, I stayed glued to the burning ground inside the prison yard. Blood gushed down my nose and my cracked lips as the tall, muscular warden stomped on my shoulder.

There was an eerie silence. Other inmates watched in horror. I was being initiated into the prison system by a cruel and heartless warden who was stuck in the primitive colonial mindset of torturing and humiliating convicts

“Look up at your Jesus in the sky you fool and ask for his help” shouted the warden, menacingly squeezing his boot on my neck. 

I could neither breathe nor cry. I was later hauled into the prison clinic where a nurse administered some painkillers and dismissed me. That night of August 2023, as my mind swirled, I wondered what my friend; Mama Phoebe Muga Asiyo would have said if she witnessed the beating and humiliation I endured. As I embarked on the torturous journey of a 10-year prison sentence. I recalled the empathy and motherly love Asiyo had in handling prisoners. 

Long before Kenya attained independence from the British, Mama Asiyo applied for a job in the Prisons department. The newspaper advert she saw called upon applicants with an interest in the rehabilitation of offenders.

Social worker

“I had already worked with young men in detention and was involved as a social worker in Nairobi with women whose husbands had been arrested and detained by the colonial forces. Some of the women were victims of the Lari massacre. I met many children whose parents had been killed. I even adopted two of them.

‘‘One of the girls I saved could not sleep alone. At the age of 10, she had watched with horror from a tree top, as her mother was hacked to death.” Asiyo once told me. She had contracted me as her official biographer.

To enhance Asiyo’s skills and knowledge in dealing with inmates, the colonial government took her for studies in Britain where she spent some time working at London’s HM Prison Holloway for adult women and young offenders.

“In those days prisoners were not creatively engaged. I convinced my boss and we started making handicraft at Langata prison. I asked women to make dolls and dress them like men and women from their communities. I had to occupy their minds and make them go back through time. It kept the prisoners happy and busy,” she said

Mama Asiyo took an interest in reading through the prisoner’s files. Many were in prison due to want and not greed.

She began discussing the possibility of non-custodial sentences but the government was not ready for this concept which she had seen at work in Britain. She knew that once a woman leaves home, the whole home shuts down.

She initiated a programme which allowed establishment of nurseries inside prisons to cater for children under five. Soon, the prison introduced dairy farming, poultry and other activities for prisoners.

Asiyo noticed a pattern. Most women on capital offences were charged with murdering their husbands. She keenly listened to their stories and urged them to deny the murder charges.

“I told one particular woman not to plead guilty. Then I sat at the back of the courtroom to follow the proceedings. I was shocked to hear her say: “Yes I killed him and if he woke up even now, I will kill him again” Asiyo was horrified.

The woman, Esther, was sentenced to death but Asiyo successfully helped her file a petition. Jomo Kenyatta had just taken oath of office as the first president of the new nation of Kenya. The hearing of the case had taken time and mitigating factors were so grave. Fortunately, Esther was given manslaughter and released after sometime.

There is however a case that shook Asiyo to the core. The accused had killed her husband. “I was preparing her file as she waited for her execution. I asked her son to come and get her wish and last word. She told him in my presence: “My son, you know I am dying in your place, but I want you to get married, get children and help the family tree grow.”

Asiyo was horrified. “I asked the young man to go into another room. I then turned to the mother and asked her why she should die for her son. She said that since the court had decided her fate, she wanted to go and be with her God. “You know Peter killed his father but he is my only child and if he dies our home will be closed.” 

“I rushed to the Solicitor-General Kitili Mendwa. I told him the story. He looked at me coldly and said , “Madam Asiyo, this woman could have been killed by a car on the road so do not even bring up this case” he told me dismissively. I went to a Catholic priest to take me see Mzee Kenyatta who gave me a 4 pm appointment. I knew by then the hangman would have come to measure the inmate’s neck. I went to see Mzee Kenyatta who keenly listened to my story. He asked for a green pen and commuted that sentence to life imprisonment.” Asiyo ran back to the prison before the hangman could carry out his cold assignment. The woman had given up to fate. A prison doctor had already given her an injection to help dull her senses. When Asiyo told her about the President’s action, she collapsed. Asiyo said that the woman did some time in prison but was later released after receiving a presidential pardon. She settled at her home in the Rift Valley.

That incident, taught Asiyo of the dangers of capital punishment. She realised how easy it was to hang the wrong people.

“Hanging was very rare during Daniel arap Moi’s time. There were real dangers of hanging pregnant women. This would amount to taking double lives. At one time I called a doctor to examine a convict in death row. It turned out she was pregnant and we saved her life in the nick of time” said Asiyo.

When she became the first Kenyan woman Senior Superintendent of Prisons, Asiyo initiated major reforms in the prison system. Her programme aimed at preparing prisoners, especially women for life after prison.  

Some of the reforms Aisyo initiated ensured hardcore criminals were separated from petty offenders. It is a pity I met young boys who walked in as innocent first offenders but left prison as hardened criminals.  

Under her watch, all women prisons were decentralised and run separately from the men prisons. She launched a major campaign for women convicts to receive sanitary towels.

“I would wake up on at 5 am for the drill of inspecting the prison. We would check nails, the hair, teeth and conduct general hygiene check-up. Some women on their monthly period would not want to participate. I made a lot of noise for sanitary towels. I was accused of making women too comfortable. At one time, I had to take bloodied clothes of the women to a senior officers meeting for the point to sink home.”  

Dramatic moments

 Asiyo worked at several prison facilities in Kenya from; Langata, Shimo la Tewa, Nakuru, Kodiaga, to Kamiti Maximum Prison. She witnessed dramatic moments, when prisoners tried to commit suicide or break out.

“From prison work, I learned that all our tribes have very rich cultures. Some woman asked a Judge; ‘I would like you to sentence me to death so that I can go and settle this issue with my late husband.

‘‘Women would stand many years of real abuse and bodily harm because of culture that allowed them to suffer in silence. Eventually they would kill their tormentors” Asiyo would recall years later.

Death sentence is dehumanising both to the convict and to society. It is demeaning even for those conducting the hanging act. Asiyo said that when the office of the hangman was Africanised, the person who took over from the mzungu was so traumatised after some time he was admitted to Mathari Mental Hospital.

“Hanging is very unAfrican. Our cultures had restitution. If someone killed from another clan they would pay certain fines and carry out traditional rituals. Among my Luo community, they would give a daughter to the clan of the victim to give birth to a child who would be named after the dead person”

Prisoners, she argued, have feelings, aspirations and hopes. “We can help them live up to their aspirations at no extra cost by offering humane services in prison. If you really want to defeat crime, we must promote quality education for all. Most of our crimes are need and poverty driven. If we make every youth proud of being members of the community, very few would indulge in crime” said Asiyo 

“I saw a lot of pain caused by British soldiers. Africans never killed women and children in war but British soldiers were committing many war crimes.

‘‘They were cruel to women and children. They brutalised even, pregnant mothers. In my mind, I was thinking how do I revenge now? How do I pay back?”

By the time Asiyo became Head of the Child Welfare Society, she had witnessed too much pain and suffering of children. “I recommended that the law of adoption be looked into. Kenyatta set up a Commission and I was one of the Commissioners. The adoption was made more elastic,” said Asiyo

At one time, Asiyo witnessed a demonic act at the present day Starehe Boys Centre. Then it was a government quarters. A British soldier found a pregnant woman seated and for no apparent reason, beat her up, opened her legs, and drove in a bottle of beer inside her private parts. Asiyo was furious for months. It is part of this anger that would propel her into politics years later.

Then she plunged into women empowerment. It was in 1959 when Asiyo led a delegation of 15 women from across Kenya to visit Kenyatta in prison and discuss the place of women in the anticipated government. She recalled that visit: “He came to open the gate for us. It was in Maralal, and he was living in a three bed-roomed house. We had carried plenty of green vegetables, and flour. I saw tiny tear drops fall from his eyes. We spoke for the whole day. Mzee spoke about his experiences in Britain and what he thought about the new nation and the potential that Kenya had especially in terms of economic development.”

 “In 1964 Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah invited 40 of us from east Africa to his country. He told us that if women’s energy is not harnessed and accommodated in leadership in Africa, they will be like locusts in nation’s cornfields.

‘‘He told us go back home, and help run our governments. It is you who will be in those fields ploughing and preparing the grain. It is you and Africa is in your hands. You have to bring forth strong men who will safeguard the African people. We were in Accra for three days.”

Letter of resignation

After independence, Asiyo and Jael Mbogo tried to convince Jaramogi Odinga Odinga against resigning as Kenyatta’s Vice President. Jaramogi had written his letter of resignation when an old woman called Salome Mitula, whispered his intentions to Asiyo and Jael.

Salome, while cursing Jaramogi she told him: “You cannot leave food that you have helped prepare on the table.” However, the indignity against Jaramogi by Kenyatta’s handlers was too much for him. “When he showed us the letter we grabbed it and tore it. Whether he sent a copy to the head of state we do not know.

He chased us from is residence. Jael and I chewed half each of the letter” Asiyo would recall while bursting into laughter

As Mama Asiyo is interred on her journey to the land of her forbearers, we all owe her respect for her fight for the rights of prisoners, women and children.