Mothers and Children of the International Drug War: A View from a Women’s Prison in Quito, Ecuador

This chapter looks at Ecuador where the number of women imprisoned has soared since 1991. The chapter draws on ethnographic research conducted by both authors in the largest women’s prison, located in Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. The first section looks at the supply-side interdiction policies implemented in Ecuador and demonstrates that women are not collateral damage but intended targets. Next, it describes how the war on drugs has changed prison and the profile of inmates as a result of interdiction efforts. The second section describes the effects of these policies from the perspective of two groups of women imprisoned in Quito: Ecuadorians and foreign nationals. We conclude that while these women’s experience as mothers/prisoners differs greatly, the war on drugs produces a number of outcomes that disproportionately punish women and their families.