My poor parents have suffered the stress of having their first-born take off to South America for 5 months, received nothing but a few emails and quick calls, and listened to her whine about how she wants to be Argentine. Now said devil child calls them to inform them that she is to work in a girl´s prison. “How lovely, dear.” If my father has any hair when I return, I will be impressed.

This week I did my first morning´s work in the female penitenciary for minors in the centre of Cordoba city. As with all things, I had my preconceptions – a mass of terrifying studded people selling drugs and fighting. Something like “Bad Girls” but for girls with smaller boobs. We rung the bell and the door really did creak open to reveal a middle aged lady with a lot of keys on a hoop. Yikes! We walked down a dingy corridor and were shown into a small room. The lady shut the door and left. Has there been some misunderstanding? We are actually here for a visit, not a long-term stay... We stood awkwardly for half an hour before being shown into the office of a kindly looking version on Matron Mamma Morton from the film “Chicago”. She explained to us the way the centre worked and what the girls did; that is, what they do now. What they did to get where they are is best not asked. We walked through into the main parlour where 15 girls were sat around looking hard. I felt very British and very soft. But foreign visitors are, unsurprisingly, thin on the ground and soon we had a mini-swarm of intrigued girls introducing themselves or hovering nearby, avoiding our gaze and observing us like timid birds. Then it was time for the grand tour. One girl, who looked about 15 years old, but had the sad eyes of someone much older, decided to take the lead. You must come and see our rooms!! We walked down another dank corridor. “This is mine” she said proudly gesturing to what was essencially a hole in the wall with giant iron bars on the door and a bed wedged inside. “And this is Dayanna´s.” We turned to see another cave-like room, exactly as the first. Dayanna stepped forward to lay claim to her lair. We walked along the tunnel looking into each room and one by one the girls stepped forward to present what was both their possesion, and their cage. Never have I sat around and chatted music and boys with people whose lives are so desperately different from my own. As stories began to filter out, as threads and snags rather than in fluent ribbons, the full horror of the lives these young girls had lived became apparent. When my parents were teaching me to ride a bike, their parents were schooling them in the art of picking a pocket. Most of their relatives are in prison, on the streets or dead, and they have been consistently denied any education by a series of let downs and bad circumstances. Officially they are dangerous criminals. In reality, they have been cruelly betrayed by a state that should protect them. And yet these girls are far from ready to give up. Nor did they see me, and the social class that my foreign accent and skin colour represent, as the cause of their misery. One came over and spurted her 5 english sentences at me. “I am learning english so I can be a business lady and travel.” Another told me how she wanted to be a doctor. Children who grow up in Conservative families will tell you they are conservative until they mature enough to make their own decision. Children from Labour families will do the same. These children have grown up thinking crime is the way to survive, and seen those they love and respect do things that the rest of us have the privalage of only seeing at the hands of “baddies” on TV. But now they have been shown that crime isn´t paying, and the people they love have turned their backs on them, so they are having to learn another way. Their conviction to living an honest life may be more challenging to maitain on the outside, but for now at least, they are learning to make their own choices. As a girl whose life has been pretty plain sailing, they could have hated me. But instead they invited me into their lives. I feel very privalaged to have spent time amongst them.