NAIROBI, KENYA, March 8, 2004: The catwalk fashions of Paris and Milan came to a women’s prison in the Kenyan capital Nairobi on Monday, where the inmates celebrated International Women’s Day by turning on the style. Prisoners dressed in traditional and contemporary outfits sashayed across a courtyard at Langata Women’s Prison as rock music played in the background and scores of fellow inmates clapped and cheered. International Women’s Day is marked on March 8 by women’s groups around the world to highlight their struggle for the rights of women in society. “The girls really enjoyed it so much,” show coordinator and convicted drug trafficker Judith Akinyi told Reuters. “It gave them a chance to show their creative side.” Most of the items worn by the models were made by the inmates themselves in the prison workshops.
The jail, which holds some 600 convict and remand prisoners — and about 50 of their children — staged the event to mark a visit by members of the Hindu Council of Kenya and the Prisoners Care Programme, a Kenyan NGO that runs inmate rehabilitation projects.
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