1,300 juveniles in jails: report

ISLAMABAD, July 1: Pakistani jails hold at least 1,300 juvenile prisoners and an up to 10,000 children are facing criminal litigation and appearing in courts.

These statistics come from a report launched by the Society for Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) here Thursday on the 10th anniversary of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO).

According to the report, there were 1,357 juvenile prisoners in jails in December 2009, and the number dropped to 1,300 by the end June.

Speaking at the report launch, National Manager Juvenile Justice Abdullah Khoso said the noticeable decline in the number of juvenile prisoners was an achievement of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, which was promulgated in 2000 when the figure was anything over 5,000.

“Sparc commemorates 10 years of the JJSO in the hope that this figure will further decline and there will come a time when children will not be detained in cells, at least not for petty crimes,” Khoso noted.

Despite this small victory, the JJSO has failed the children who come in conflict with the law in many ways. The JJSO saw many upheavals but the jolt came when it was struck down by the Lahore High Court on December 6, 2004.

Sparc and the then attorney general filed a petition contesting the LHC’s action.

The Supreme Court has temporarily restored its status, yet it has not received any support from the implementing agencies, he added.

Over the decade, Khoso said police had tortured the juvenile offenders at police stations, judicial officers gave physical remand of juveniles to the police, and juveniles were awarded rigorous imprisonment and detained along with adults in police lockups and jails and were tried by the anti-terrorism courts.

Similarly, the government has not notified the JJSO rules in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and as such Frontier Crimes Regulation 1901 is haunting children as young as three years.

He said provinces had failed to strengthen reclamation and probation departments, which would help release children on probation and save them from being jailed.

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