I spent nine years in a Colombian women’s prison. This is what I learned | Claudia Cardona

The system is failing women, with often devastating impacts on our families, mental or reproductive health. But those who have been inside can change it for the better - if we are allowed

When I started my jail sentence in Bogota, Colombia, it was 2008 and I was 31 with a four-year-old daughter. I was imprisoned for nine years and three months. I don't tell people the reason I went to prison. Not for me, but for all the free women who face so many problems because of the time they spent in jail. My crime doesn't make me the person I am.

Most women in Colombia commit crime out of a need to provide for their families. They are judged and punished without society or the justice system taking the circumstances surrounding the crime into account.