When Carla Flores imagined her relationship with her husband and her wedding day, she did not imagine that both would take place inside one of El Salvador’s maximum-security prisons, the Chalatenango prison.
On Jan. 22, 2009, Carla’s boyfriend Moses de Jesus Flores, a member of one of El Salvador’s most notorious gangs, the MS-13, was convicted for the murder of nine people and sentenced to 50 years in prison, Carla Flores said.
Despite Moses de Jesus Flores’ incarceration, the couple was determined to make their relationship work and to experience normal milestones like other couples, such as having children, Carla Flores said.
Though the couple already has a son together, Jose, 8, they wanted to have more children, she said.
“I wanted to have a family with Moses so I was determined to get pregnant again,” she said. “I wanted to strengthen and consolidate our family.”
In certain prisons in El Salvador, gangs are in total control. The Chalatenango prison is one of these gang-controlled prisons, which holds 800 prisoners who belong to the MS-13 gang, according to a 2008 article by Raúl Gutiérrez, “Rights – El Salvador: Prison Out of Control.”
In order to conceive a child with Moses, who was her boyfriend at that time, Carla Flores entered the jail illegally, said Daniel Menjivar, a family friend.
“My husband, because he is in a gang, is respected at the jail and he asked his friends to help,” she said. “They prepared a jail cell and distracted the guards so he could be with me alone. That day I got pregnant.”
Carla continued to make the trip to the Chalatenango prison every Tuesday, a designated day for family members and friends to visit the prisoners, to see Moses and give him money, she said.
“I could only see him for two hours and the procedures of the military to get into the jail are humiliating,” she added. “The officers ask very private questions and try to annoy the women so that they stop seeing their husbands.”
In September 2010, four months into Carla’s pregnancy, the Chalatenango prison made revisions to their visitation policy, only allowing immediate family members to see the detainees.
“I was devastated,” Carla Flores said. “I had to find a way to be able to see him.”
After the prison revised it’s visitation policy, Carla Flores said she decided to contact lawyer and family friend, Carlos Roberto Ramirez Castillo, to see if they could be married inside the prison so that she could visit him once again.
Over the course of two months, Castillo spoke with prison authorities and completed the necessary paper work so Carla Flores could enter the prison and a wedding ceremony to occur.
When Carla Flores was six months pregnant, she found out the paperwork went through, allowing her to marry Moses Flores. She also found out she was going to have twins.
"I was shocked to find out there were two babies," she said. "On our wedding day, I was so excited to tell the news to Moses."
On Aug. 25, 2010 in a small room inside the prison, Carla and Moses Flores were married, Carla Flores said.
“I had brought a small cake. When I was going through security, they took the cake from me and destroyed it and returned it in a many small pieces. They said they had to check for drugs or weapons,” she said.
In attendance was Castillo, who performed the ceremony, and two witnesses to oversee the ceremony. Carla asked two friends from her community and church to act as witnesses for her marriage, Sandra Lissette Portillo and her mother, Elva Marina Portillo.
"I was very excited and happy for Carla because [my mother and I] are in the same situation with having a loved one in jail,” Sandra Portillo said. “We developed a friendship from this experience and because we are from the same Church. We were so happy to be a part of the wedding for them.”
One detail of the wedding that surprised Carla’s son Jose was her wardrobe, he said.
“I was very surprised that she did not have a white dress,” Jose Flores said.
Carla Flores explained to her son that in jail it is not possible to have a real wedding dress.
“I wore a red dress and Moses, by help with his friends in prison, was able to get a dress shirt to wear for the ceremony,” she said. “When the ceremony was over, we were allowed a couple minutes to celebrate and drink coca cola out of plastic cups.”
After the ceremony, Carla Flores was able to register with the prison as Moses’s wife and was granted visiting rights once more.
Though the Carla was granted her visiting rights again, visiting the prison still remains a difficult and dangerous process.
The Chalatenango prison is home to many members of the MS-13 gang, a deadly rival of another one of El Salvador’s gangs, the 18th Street gang, Menjivar said.
“The Chalatenango prison receives people who have been arrested, mostly from the MS-13 gang,” Menjivar said.
But the city where the prison is located belong’s to the MS-13’s rival gang, (the) 18(th Street gang),” Menjivar said.
“When the wives come to visit on Tuesday, all of the gang members in the city know that these women are wives to the gang members who they are fighting,” Menjivar added. “It is very dangerous for these women to visit now.”
Women who visit the prisoners are in the currently petitioning the government to change the visitation day because the rival gang members know they are wives of MS-13 gang members, Carla Flores said.
Last year, a confrontation between 18 members and a group of wives resulted in murder, Menjivar said.
“Carla explained to me that last year, when these women get out of the jail from visiting their husbands to go home a group of the 18 gang caught these women and they killed them,” Menjivar said. “They cut these women in pieces and put the pieces in plastic bags and threw it inside the jail over the big walls to say to the men inside that they have the power.”
Though Carla Flores said she struggles with fear on her journeys to visit her husband, the deep love she has for her husband is what eases her fear.
“I met my husband when I was 12 years old,” Carla said.“ I have been completely in love with him for many years. He is my only love and I will never love anyone else.”
1 comment:
TRUE LOVE HONESTLY ,WAOOO IS AMAIZING HOW BIG HER LOVE IS FOR HER HUSBAND, THE GOVERMENT NEEDS TO CONTROL THE VISITING DAYS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE FOR THE GOVERMENT TO LET THIS THINGS HAPEN, EACH OF THE GANGS ARE VIOLENT AND THE GOVERMENT KNOWS THIS AS A FACT THAT THEY HATE EACHOTHER SO FOR THAT THEY NEED TO CEPERATE THE DAYS ,OR THEY NEED TO HAVE CEPARATE JAILS PERIOD.
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