There are many social and political activists and human rights organizations that focus on ‎abolishing practices such as the death penalty, stoning, or improving conditions for women ‎prisoners. These activities, however, focus on saving women who have already been convicted ‎and are in prison. ‎

There certainly are individuals and organizations engaged in the prevention of social ills and ‎providing assistance to abused women, but it growingly appears that this assistance is not ‎sufficient to make a change. Prisoners whose lives have been saved enter a hostile social ‎environment after their release and are prone to going astray. ‎

In several cases in which I was personally involved, women who were saved from death, ‎eventually returned to their old lifestyle of prostitution which has placed them in renewed danger ‎of arrest and punishment. This is because these women lack employment opportunities, are ‎poor, and often rely on the assistance of charitable foundations. ‎

Is there nothing that can be done for thee people? Can society not provide a fresh start for a ‎healthy life to people who have been freed? Can we not set aside a special prize for women ‎whose human rights have been abused, but who have risen to the occasion to become positive ‎role models for others? Do organizations that respect human rights and work to institute such ‎rights also have a responsibility to provide conditions to prevent these freed women from ‎relapsing into their old lifestyles and ending up in prison, again? ‎

The placement of such priorities in the platforms of charitable and volunteer organizations will ‎help not only to prevent the relapse of many freed women into their lifestyles, but also to spread ‎awareness about these issues and turn individual problems of poor and desperate women into ‎public and social problems. ‎

We may think that issues such as this belong to a certain class of people, or, how can we expect a ‎woman who has just been freed from prison to access such information. ‎

My response is that, actually, prisoners are well connected and often form information networks ‎that surpass in effectiveness many social information networks. Furthermore, such information ‎can be presented to women while they are in prison and serving time. ‎

Freed prisoners are forgotten people that require individual and social attention. Let us not be a ‎part of their gradual extinction by forgetting them! ‎