Living Portrait of Courage: Saskia Niño de Rivera

At only 24 years old, Saskia Niño de Rivera founded Reinserta, an organization dedicated to supporting the invisible, imprisoned populations of Mexico. Saskia’s commitment to ending the cycle of violence in Mexico and serving those caught in the cycle was born out of personal hardship. When she was 17, Saskia’s uncle was kidnapped and held hostage for ransom for a month. As a teenager, she participated in the negotiations for his release. While her life would be forever changed by that pain, it fueled Saskia to learn more about criminology. This set Saskia on a path to discover one systemic issue after another, all of them connected and fueled by a criminal justice system desperate for transformation.
As she worked on criminal justice issues, she saw firsthand the state of prisons in Mexico. One of Reinserta’s primary focuses is on improving the lives of children born in prison, as Mexican law allows young children to live with their mothers in jail. Reinserta’s recent campaign and exposé Invisible Children has gained widespread attention, raising awareness around the challenges that children born into prison face. Saskia works within the prison system to create safe, positive havens for these children, where they can play and learn with their mother in an environment separate from other inmates. She also offers trainings to mothers with children in prison, helping them to navigate motherhood in the uniquely complex and trying context. Other efforts of the organization include the reintegration of juvenile offenders into society, the defense of wrongfully convicted prisoners, and the improvement of prison conditions, especially for women.

Through her work, Saskia has helped shape prison reform in Mexico. She drove the creation of a "maternity in prison" section of the national Criminal Execution Law, helped develop the Social Responsibility Agenda for 2015–2016, and has participated in a number of workshops on criminal system reform. Through Reinserta, Saskia has worked to tackle these two contributing factors of violence in Mexico head on – offering opportunities to those most vulnerable to entering the cycle of violence and creating conditions that help foster and promote healthy growth for those already exposed to it.

Saskia dedicated herself to spending time in the prisons, getting to know the inmates and earning their trust. She knows that you cannot create change from the outside looking in. Rather you must understand the problems first-hand, see prisoners as both perpetrators as victims of a failed system and believe that massive, institutional change is possible. While many may see the problems Saskia encounters can feel too complex and overwhelming to tackle, she has never shied away from taking on another challenge, even when it meant taking on the entire system. She is constantly developing new solutions that get at the heart of the many entrenched, interwoven issues that perpetuate violence within her community and country.

Official Reinserta website