Prologue Journal

‘They are not alone’: The Hongkongers who give up their free time to visit prisoners they have never met in person

• prologu5
• 01/19/202501/19/2025

Hong Kong Free Press

Jennyfer Camarillo spent Christmas Day the same way she has spent most Christmas Days for the past decade – at a prison. But she is not an inmate, nor does she work for Hong Kong’s correctional services. Jennyfer is a domestic worker from the Philippines who gives up her free time – Sundays, plus many public holidays – to visit prisoners who would otherwise have no visitors.

“We need to remind them that they are not alone,” Jennyfer, who that day saw two men from Uganda detained in a maximum security facility on the southern edge of Hong Kong Island, told HKFP.

As of last September, there were 9,801 people in custody in Hong Kong, of whom 2,749 were not Hong Kong residents, according to figures from the Correctional Services Department (CSD). Among them, 1,103 were from mainland China, Taiwan, or Macau, while the remaining 1,646 were “other nationalities” from further afield.

For many foreign inmates, whose loved ones are far away, family visits are something they can only dream of. For those who have received particularly lengthy sentences, it can be easier to let the dream go. At least it would be, were it not for people like Jennyfer.

Jennyfer is one of 90-odd volunteers for Voice for Prisoners. Established by Australian priest and prison chaplain John Wotherspoon in 2018, non-profit organisation is one of several in Hong Kong that supports inmates through prison visitation programmes and by writing them letters, while also providing financial aid for educational courses.

Voice for Prisoners also seeks to raise awareness overseas of the risks of becoming drug mules, publicising Hong Kong’s long and punitive prison sentences online and in communities in Latin America, Africa, and Asia that may be targeted by drug traffickers.

Many of the foreigners held in Hong Kong’s correctional facilities have been incarcerated on drug trafficking charges, the maximum sentence for which is a HK$5 million fine and life behind bars.

‘You’re the first visitor I’ve had in five years’

William – a Voice for Prisoners volunteer who is originally from the UK and requested to use a pseudomyn – began visiting inmates about three years ago.

He recalled his initial visit to a prisoner: “When I arrived, this chap was sort of smiling and shaking his head in disbelief, grinning. And we introduced ourselves and he said something like, ‘Man, you’re the first visitor I’ve had in five years.’”

At that time, the inmate was around seven years into his sentence for drug trafficking. He is now one of 11 men William sees on a regular basis, all of whom have been convicted of drug offences.

HKFP has reached out to the CSD to ask about the proportion of non-local prisoners detained over drug-related offences, and how long those convicted were jailed for on average.

When William returned two weeks later, the inmate told him that earlier visit had given him something to look forward to, and not just within the prison context.

“He said: ‘I’m now looking forward to getting out, I’d sort of forgotten about the world outside. But meeting someone, talking about life outside… it’s just reopened, for me, the ideas of what I can do when I get outside,’” William told HKFP.

Seeing how much his visits meant to the inmates keeps him going though the “heavy steel doors” of Shek Pik Prison and Tong Fuk Correctional Institution every weekend, he said.

“You become aware of the impact that it has on them and think, ‘I’ll continue to do this, then,” he added. “I’ll almost certainly be in prison for a Saturday and a Sunday.”

‘It was awkward’

Not every prisoner responds in the same way. The first inmate Hong Kong-Australian Eddie met had been arrested after a haul of cocaine was found in his luggage and was on remand at Lai Chi Kok Reception Centre waiting for his case to go to trial.

People remanded in custody can receive one visitor per day for 15 minutes, while those who have been convicted and sentenced are limited to two 30-minute visits a month.

“It was awkward, because he didn’t know who I was, he wasn’t sure,” Eddie, who also asked to use a pseudonym, said of that first meeting. “It took me probably until the fourth visit until he started to open up and say thanks,” he told HKFP.

Even so, Eddie said he was sure his visits were making a difference: “I was bringing things they wanted.”

People in custody are allowed to request a limited number of pre-approved items, such as toothpaste, stamps, and books. “The thicker the book, the better,” Eddie said.

Visitors also provide inmates with something invaluable: another link to their family overseas, beyond the limited phone calls from prison.

Eddie in in touch with the niece of that first inmate he visited, relaying messages between the pair during visits.

The niece, who has travelled to the city at least three times in the year or so since her uncle was arrested, has even met Eddie’s family. When she came to Hong Kong last April, Eddie’s wife took her shopping in Guangzhou, a city in mainland China. “They had a whole day out, they bought sunglasses and handbags,” he said.

It is rare for the visitors to meet prisoners’ relatives in person, though. Instead, they largely rely on messaging apps to send updates.

“Family members can send us photos of the family by WhatsApp or by email, and we can post them locally and get them to [the inmates] pretty quickly,” William explained. “I’ve even had family members call me.”

He added: “I didn’t think about any of this before I started the visits. You don’t realise what a difference it can make to the people inside, and also to their families outside, as well.”

Mental health

Russian psychology student Iryna contacted Voice for Prisoners because she wanted to visit inmates for her final-year project, which focused on “the needs of foreign inmates in Hong Kong and how not meeting those needs can impact their mental health.”

It was perfect timing. “I approached them exactly when they needed someone who spoke Russian,” said Iryna, who agreed to speak to HKFP under a pseudonym.

Since last April, she has been visiting a Ukrainian couple in their 20s who are kept in separate prisons while they await trial over drug trafficking. “The girl,” as Iryna calls her, is in Lo Wu Correctional Institution, while “the man” is in Pak Sha Wan Correctional Institution. Their four-year-old daughter is being raised by one of their mothers’ in Ukraine.

To speak to one another, “they get one call per month, I think,” Iryna said. She said they also tried to talk to each other during court visits, and she, too, was hoping to act as something of a bridge between them.

“They had this idea of getting married in prison. It’s possible, but not very romantic, probably.”

Over the course of visiting the pair once every two weeks, Iryna has grown close with the Ukrainian woman, saying, “we’ve come to be friends.”

“She’s been having lots of mental health-related issues because she’s had a panic attack recently,” Iryna said. “She told me about her experience visiting a psychiatrist in prison, and how unsatisfied she was with that.”

The woman was offered a series of medications, “which she obviously doesn’t need – she just needs someone to listen to her,” Iryna added.

According to Iryna, therein lay a major issue for non-Chinese speaking prisoners, particularly for those like the Ukrainian couple who were not comfortable speaking English.

“I think in general, the prison staff are not very well educated about how to handle [foreign inmates]… because they don’t know how to talk to them in the right way,” she said. “But they are actually vulnerable, in some cases more vulnerable than local inmates, because they are deprived of regular family visits.”

HKFP has reached out to the CSD for comment.

Iryna plans to leave the city after she completes her degree, which means she will not be able to continue to visit the couple, but she hopes to keep writing to them.

‘They did that because of something’

With nine years of prison visits under her belt, Jennyfer has become something of a familiar face at Hong Kong’s correctional institutes. “Every time I visit, smiles,” she said, grinning herself. “Not only the inmates, also the staff.”

She called Shek Pik “the most accommodating prison,” and recounted the welcome she received from the guards. “They will ask me, ‘How many are you visiting?’ and I will show them my list and they’ll say, ‘Hah, only three? Only four? You go and enjoy.’”

A devout Catholic, Jennyfer said she has approached every visit without judgement and without question. “Even asking them why there are here, no. I ask them to just tell me their story… I am just a listener,” she said. “I don’t see them [as criminals]… they did that because of something.”

Iryna arrived at the same conclusion, too, though she set off from a different starting point. “Originally I had this impression of prisoners, very stigmatised, like they were just very violent and didn’t want to change,” Iryna said.

“I can see that they are normal people, just like us, and I also ask myself what I would do if I was in their place – obviously no one wishes to be – but that’s a good point to ask yourself.”

Something else that subverted her expectations was the mood at prison facilities, particularly on weekends when more people are able to visit their loved ones inside.

“I see so many people there gathered together to see their friends or relatives, and it’s not the doomed atmosphere you expect from these places, it’s a very positive atmosphere, actually. [People are] genuinely happy to come there and make a visit,” Iryna said.

And she is among them.

“In Lo Wu there is a very long corridor of those telephones, so they see me from far away and they already smile, I’m so happy.” 

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