Wives of prisoners get pregnant using samples of their husband’s sperm smuggled out of Israel’s high-security prisons

Prison smuggling usually involves sneaking contraband from the outside world to the inmates languishing on the other side.

But at some Israeli jails there is a certain commodity that the prisoners, and more importantly their wives, are said to be desperate to smuggle out.
Many of the men there are serving life sentences having been being found guilty of appalling terrorist attacks.

Success: Dalal al-Ziben, 34, has become a mother for the second time, 16 years after her husband was handed 27 life sentences and an additional 25 years for helping plan a deadly bombing in a Jerusalem market

The wives they leave behind are often keen to have children but at the same time feel they must remain faithful.
But as prisoners jailed for terror attacks are not permitted conjugal visits by the Israeli prison system, their only hope is to be artificially inseminated with a sample of their husband’s sperm, smuggled out of the prison.
So far at least five Palestinian women claim to have become pregnant in this fashion and there are believed to be many more hoping to follow suit.
One woman, Dalal al-Ziben, 34, has recently become a mother for the second time, 16 years after her husband was handed 27 life sentences and an additional 25 years for helping plan a deadly bombing in a Jerusalem market.

Lock-up: Prisoners jailed for terror attacks are not permitted conjugal visits by the Israeli prison system

She told CNN: ‘When they arrested my husband I was 18 years old.
‘Why does the wife of a prisoner have to suffer and stay like this without children and a family? It is our right to meet our husbands and our right to have children.’
Mrs al-Ziben refused to say exactly how the samples are smuggled out of the prison because she ‘did not want to ruin it for other people’.
Tests have shown that samples can remain viable for up to 48hours providing they are kept in a sterile container at a suitable temperature.
Dr. Salim Abu Khaizaran, head of the Razan Medical Center for Fertility and IVF in the West Bank town of Nablus, claims the clinic now has dozens of samples which they have been told are from prisoners.

Dr. Salim Abu Khaizaran claims his clinic has dozens of samples which they have come from prisoners

The samples arrive at all hours of the day and night and are handed over in various types of containers.
Dr Abu Khaizaran, who is performing the artificial inseminations for free, said they arrive in ‘A lot of things, many things maybe in cups, in ointment containers,”
Some samples are viable while others have to be thrown away.
Beacuse the doctors are  unable to verify exactly who the sperm is from they ask relatives from both the wife and husband’s side to sign   papers stating the name of the potential father.
The women are also encouraged to tell members of their community about the procedure so they are not suspected of cheating on their husbands.
Dr Abu Khaizaran, added: ‘We are a male dominated society, we are an eastern society. Our women, whose husbands have been given long sentences, they have no choice but to wait for their husbands to get freed and as you know the female productive life is really limited.’
Dr Abu Khaizaran believes the Israeli authorities should start to allow conjugal visits, but until they do so he will continue to do all he can to help the wives.
However Israeli prison officials have cast doubt on the women’s claims saying it is unlikely samples would make it through their tight security.