What I learned serving time for a crime I didn't commit | Teresa Njoroge
TED Talks Daily
TED
4.1 • 12.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 November 2017
⏱️ 12 minutes
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Summary
In 2011, Teresa Njoroge was convicted of a financial crime she didn't commit -- the result of a long string of false accusations, increasing bribe attempts and the corrupt justice system in her home in Kenya. Once incarcerated, she discovered that most of the women and girls locked up with her were also victims of the same broken system, caught in a revolving door of life in and out of prison due to poor education and lack of economic opportunity. Now free and cleared by the courts of appeal, Njoroge shares how she's giving women in prison the skills, tools and support they need to break the cycle of poverty and crime and build a better life.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This TED Talk features social justice reform advocate Teresa and Giroge recorded live at TED Women 2017. |
| 0:10.0 | When I had those birds slam hard, I knew it was for real. I feel confused. |
| 0:24.0 | I feel betrayed. |
| 0:27.4 | I feel overwhelmed. |
| 0:31.2 | I feel silenced. |
| 0:35.2 | What just happened? |
| 0:38.3 | How could they send me here? |
| 0:41.3 | I don't belong here. |
| 0:45.3 | How could they make such a huge mistake |
| 0:48.3 | without any repercussions whatsoever to their actions? |
| 0:54.6 | I see large groups of women in tattered uniform, |
| 1:00.8 | surrounded by huge walls and gates, |
| 1:05.2 | enclosed by iron-barbed wires, |
| 1:08.4 | and I get hit by an awful stench. |
| 1:12.6 | And I ask myself, |
| 1:14.6 | how did I move from working in the respected financial banking sector, |
| 1:23.7 | having worked so hard in school, |
| 1:29.5 | to now being locked up in the largest correctional facility |
| 1:32.9 | for women in Kenya. |
| 1:36.5 | My first night at Langata Women Maximum Security Prison |
| 1:42.5 | was the toughest. |
| 1:46.0 | In January of 2009, |
... |
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