Click Map for:

• Country Facts
• Crime Statistics
• Legislation and Policy

Hibiscus was established in 1991 in the UK under Female Prisoners Welfare Project (FPWP) to provide support for foreign women in their prisons. It established offices in Lagos, Nigeria and Kingston Jamaica; the origin of most foreign drug couriers. Hibiscus provides an advocacy service for women exposed to the criminal justice system, maintains links between women in prison, their children and other family members, they prepare home circumstances reports for the probation service and pre-sentence reports for the courts.

Hibiscus Jamaica was established initially to provide the courts with Home Circumstances Reports which provides the UK court and defence with information about the defendants’ background, motivation. These exposed the plight of the extended family, who often live in abject poverty and squalor. Welfare and advocacy services were built on the back of the provision of HCRs. The first objective was keep children of offenders in education. Much of Hibiscus’ work is centred on sustaining the prisoners’ children through education. Hibiscus’ crime reduction and violence prevention strategy involves education and improving life for the families. Families are directed to the newly implemented government PATH programme and Hibiscus Jamaica also devises entrepreneurial endeavours to assist them establishing small micro-enterprises e.g. chicken farms and dressmaking.

Hibiscus has spearheaded education awareness programmes warning of the dangers of drug trafficking and associated consequences. In collaboration with the BBC, Hibiscus produced “Mules,” a documentary portraying the problems faced by Nigerian women in UK prisons. It removed the myths and lies told to entice women into couriering. The repeated screening of this documentary on Nigerian television has single-handedly assisted in bringing down the number of Nigerian women caught on drug couriering charges. In Jamaica a series of posters depicting the life of “imaginary” Eva, who is lured into couriering and incarcerated in a UK prison were produced. The posters’ distribution and discussion in schools brings an understanding of the problem and of the consequences of drug-couriering at national, community and family levels.

Hibiscus was instrumental in Operation Airbridge which saw the provision of ION SCAN and EMIT x-ray machines for the two national airports. With the use of these technological aids, in conjunction with the zealous educational and media campaign the number of individuals caught smuggling drugs was reduced by 80%, significantly contributed to the reduction of Jamaican women carrying drugs to foreign countries.