Xposure 2025: Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen captures strength of jailed women

Photo : Sharjah Govt Media Bureau

At the International Photography Festival (Xposure) in Sharjah, Venezuelan photographer Ana Maria Arevalo Gosen shared a powerful story about women in Latin American prisons. On the last day of the event, she asked the audience a deep question: “If justice only punishes and never heals, is it truly justice at all?”

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Ana, who takes pictures to tell real-life stories, focuses on women’s rights, fairness, and social problems. She spoke about her long project Eternal Days, where she visited prisons in Venezuela, El Salvador, and Guatemala to show how women live there. Through her photos and words, she helped people understand the struggles, strength, and hope of these women.

Ana was born in Caracas, Venezuela. In 2009, she left her country after facing three scary events—a protest, a robbery, and an attack where someone tried to kill her. She moved to Europe and found her love for photography. When she returned to Venezuela in 2017, a friend told her about pre-trial detention centres. These places were built to keep people for only 45 days, but many were left there for years in very bad conditions.

Getting permission to enter these places was not easy. Ana visited a detention centre in Valencia, where five small rooms, meant for 100 people, were packed with many more women. They shared dirty toilets, had no privacy, and only got fresh air from a tiny window. Those who could pay extra, called "strawberries," had small comforts like a bed, a TV, and a little kitchen.

Taking photos in such places was hard. “The camera itself felt like an imposition,” Ana said. The women didn’t trust her at first. To connect with them, she spent time with them, listened to their stories, and even sang to them. Many of these women had no lawyer and did not know when they would be free. Some were accused of gang crimes or selling drugs, while others were just stuck in a broken system. “I gained their trust, and our bond grew stronger. Even in the worst places, they showed strength,” she said.

One of the saddest things was that many of these women were mothers. When their children turned five, they had to send them away—to their families or to government homes. Ana’s photos showed mothers playing with their children, knowing they would soon have to say goodbye.

Ana also visited women prisoners in El Salvador and Guatemala. Many of them were put in jail for gang-related crimes or selling drugs, often without proof. She took pictures of police destroying poppy fields in Guatemala, where families grew the plants legally and illegally.

Even in such painful places, Ana saw that women found ways to take care of themselves. Some did their hair, others learned music. “This is not resistance; this is survival,” she said.

At the end of her talk, she asked the audience some tough questions: “What does it mean to jail women who were only trying to survive? What happens to them when they leave? Can they really start a new life? And what does this say about our world?”

She gave one shocking fact: out of 81,000 people jailed in El Salvador under new crime laws, only 7,000 have been set free.

Her final words left the audience thinking deeply: “A broken system does not just hurt prisoners—it weakens the whole society. In the end, we all suffer.”

Xposure 2025, organized by the, ended on February 26. Ana’s talk was a strong reminder of the hidden struggles of women in prisons and the need for kindness and fairness in justice.

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