Walls Within The Walls

Verse 1

In Thiès, Senegal, behind the iron gate

Maïmouna Diouf remembers how she'd wait

The judicial process moves so slow

Women charged with crimes have nowhere else to go

No soap, no food beyond the rationed plate

Basic supplies that never seem to come

The men get visits, but the women get none

Chorus

There are walls within the walls

Stigma heavier than stone

When your family turns away

You serve your sentence all alone

In Senegal the women pay

A price the courts don't say

There are walls within the walls

That never fall away

Verse 2

A woman convicted loses more than time

Her community erases her like she erased a line

The men hold on to bonds, to brothers, friends

But for the women, all that connection ends

No hygiene products, dignity denied

The harsher reality that hides inside

A system built for men on every side

Chorus

There are walls within the walls

Stigma heavier than stone

When your family turns away

You serve your sentence all alone

In Senegal the women pay

A price the courts don't say

There are walls within the walls

That never fall away

Verse 3

March twenty-twenty-six, the story's told

By Ricci Shryock, the truth is getting old

Familial support just stripped away

While women wait for trial day after day

Global health, they call it, look and see

The prison is a sentence plus a penalty

The world outside forgets so easily

Bridge

And who will speak for those

Whose names we'll never know

Behind the walls in Senegal

Where the silence starts to grow

It's more than bars and concrete

It's the shame they make you own

A double sentence handed down

To women left alone

Chorus

There are walls within the walls

Stigma heavier than stone

When your family turns away

You serve your sentence all alone

In Senegal the women pay

A price the courts don't say

There are walls within the walls

That never fall away

Inspired by real events. Names, details, and narrative may be fictionalized.