Activists demand implementation of ordinance
Activists advocating to defend the rights of children on Friday demanded to the Chief Justice of Sindh High Court (SHC) and the Inspector General Police Sindh to implement the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000.
The activists demanded this while organising a two-day Juvenile Justice System Awareness Camp at the city courts premises, said a press release issued here on Friday. The camp was jointly organised by Karachi Bar Association (KBA), Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) and In-charge of the Child Rights Desk (CRD) established at the women police station New Town Karachi. The presence of police officers at the camp was a great surprise for many of the visitors. A large number of visitors termed the police responsible for increasing crime rate.
For two days, the camp remained a center of debate about the juvenile justice system which is not being implemented. A huge number of visiting lawyers, barristers, relatives of the prisoners, prosecutor generals and police officers shared their experiences and initiated a positive dialogue about a constructive role of all organs of the juvenile justice system. The camp aimed to promote concept of pro-bono among lawyers, so they could voluntarily undertake cases of poor children as public servants without payment.
In-charge child rights desk, police officer Farida Khan while talking to visitors said that all police officers are not bad. There are some good police officers too, who are trying to cultivate positive trends.
Abdullah Khoso, provincial manager juvenile justice, said that the CRD is primarily responsible to deal with the cases of children who come in conflict with the law. It is providing protection and ensuring all the rights are given to a child being alleged for an offence under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO) 2000 and Sindh Children Act, 1955. The desk, whenever possible, is also diverting a child for a minor offence from the retributive formal criminal justice system to an informal system of rehabilitation and reintegration. The desk will also deal with children who become victim of any offense like sexual abuse, torture, sale, trafficking, forced begging, forced labour, exploitation etc.
Khoso moreover said that Lawyer fraternity has to jointly play its role to get the juvenile justice system implemented. They should write to the Chief Justice Sindh High Court for establishing Juvenile Courts and solving issues of bail and surety for poor children. He added that 20th November is Universal Children Day because on this day United Nations Assembly had adopted Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The article 40 of the CRC says that a child in conflict with the laws has right to treatment which promotes the Child’s Sense of dignity and reintegration into society, which is hardly seen in practice.
Naeem Qureshi, General Secretary Karachi Bar Council (KBC), said that KBC will write to the Chief Justice Sindh High Court for the establishment of Juvenile Courts and implementation of the JJSO 2000 in its true spirit.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=209669
Saturday, November 21, 2009
By By our correspondent
Karachi
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
‘Children for sale’
THIS is apropos of the news item, ‘Girl for sale’ (Sept 18). Muhammad Ayoub, a jobless man, had taken his 12-year-old daughter to the Hyderabad Press Club where he offered her for sale.
Likewise, on Oct 12, Nadeem, a resident of Hyderabad, had brought three children with him at the press club for sale because of poverty, hunger and inflation.
Such incidents are becoming common gradually and parents are compelled to bring their children for sale at different press clubs of Sindh.
They, in their desperateness, hold placards bearing such announcements as ‘children for sale’ because they cannot afford to feed, cloth and protect them.
This increasing trend shows that our society has been badly fractured and has stopped cultivating the best values of love and affection for children.
The value of respecting children and their rights as being innocent has disappeared from our society.
This also shows that our institutions have not been able to dispense social justice among the poor.
Besides, unfortunately, there is no child protection law in Pakistan which could ensure respect and protection of children from their sale by their parents, or else, because of poverty, hunger, joblessness and inflation.
In 1990, Pakistan had ratified the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 1989.
The UNCRC’s Article 4 says that states parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of rights recognised in the present Convention.
Furthermore, in Article 35 it explicitly says, “State parties will take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form”.
After the ratification of the UNCRC, Pakistan has to provide complete social, legal, economic protection to children from such acts but after the passage of 18 years to its ratification still no concrete and visible measures have been taken to enable legislation like creating national child rights commission and bringing national laws in conformity with the UNCRC.
However, in 1996, the first draft of the National Child Protection Bill was prepared and since then it has been refused numerous times and lying useless.
Also Pakistan does have the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance, 2002, but it does not cover internal (or within Pakistan) trafficking or sale of children by anyone for any purpose.
ABDULLAH KHOSO
Karachi
Monday, 02 Nov, 2009 | 06:06 AM PST
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/letters-to-the-editor/children-for-sale-119
Likewise, on Oct 12, Nadeem, a resident of Hyderabad, had brought three children with him at the press club for sale because of poverty, hunger and inflation.
Such incidents are becoming common gradually and parents are compelled to bring their children for sale at different press clubs of Sindh.
They, in their desperateness, hold placards bearing such announcements as ‘children for sale’ because they cannot afford to feed, cloth and protect them.
This increasing trend shows that our society has been badly fractured and has stopped cultivating the best values of love and affection for children.
The value of respecting children and their rights as being innocent has disappeared from our society.
This also shows that our institutions have not been able to dispense social justice among the poor.
Besides, unfortunately, there is no child protection law in Pakistan which could ensure respect and protection of children from their sale by their parents, or else, because of poverty, hunger, joblessness and inflation.
In 1990, Pakistan had ratified the United Nations Conventions on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) 1989.
The UNCRC’s Article 4 says that states parties shall undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of rights recognised in the present Convention.
Furthermore, in Article 35 it explicitly says, “State parties will take all appropriate national, bilateral and multilateral measures to prevent the abduction of, the sale of or traffic in children for any purpose or in any form”.
After the ratification of the UNCRC, Pakistan has to provide complete social, legal, economic protection to children from such acts but after the passage of 18 years to its ratification still no concrete and visible measures have been taken to enable legislation like creating national child rights commission and bringing national laws in conformity with the UNCRC.
However, in 1996, the first draft of the National Child Protection Bill was prepared and since then it has been refused numerous times and lying useless.
Also Pakistan does have the Prevention and Control of Human Trafficking Ordinance, 2002, but it does not cover internal (or within Pakistan) trafficking or sale of children by anyone for any purpose.
ABDULLAH KHOSO
Karachi
Monday, 02 Nov, 2009 | 06:06 AM PST
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/the-newspaper/letters-to-the-editor/children-for-sale-119
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Activists push for juvenile jails reforms
Thursday, September 17, 2009
By By Jan Khaskheli
Karachi
Civil society organisations working for the protection of children’s rights have urged the government to establish ‘Youthful Offenders Industrial Schools’ in jails across the province so as to ensure that juvenile inmates are provided with adequate therapy and turned into reformed citizens, The News has learnt.
Abdullah Khoso, provincial manager of Juvenile Justice Sindh - a subordinate body of Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) - told The News that jails should be turned into institutions to educate children, so that they come out as conscientious citizens when they are released instead of people reverting back to crime.
Narrating his experiences from a week-long visit to police stations and juvenile wards in northern Sindh, Khoso said that these wards were in deplorable conditions, while police officers were ignorant of juvenile laws. He said that in the absence of such facilities in northern Sindh, hundreds of juvenile prisoners become hardened criminals or turn into victims of physical and sexual abuse.
He claimed to have met 22 juveniles inmates at the juvenile ward in Khairpur Jail, where almost all children were suffering from skin allergy. Children complained that they were neither provided with medicines and proper treatment by jail authorities, nor have they been given safe drinking water. Instead, the children maintained, they were being compelled to use brackish water in prison.
Khoso said that the Sindh Prisons inspector general (IG), Sindh Police IG, Minister for Prisons as well as the Sindh Home Department have to take efficient and quality measures to improve the behaviour of police officers towards the child offenders as well as to the condition of the prisons.
While talking about the meeting he held with the Khaipur Jail deputy superintendent (DS), Khoso said that the DS told him that they had sent requests to the Home Department for installing pipelines to provide safe drinking water to juveniles. However, they were waiting to receive a response. He further added that the conditions at Larkana and Jacobabad jails’ juvenile wards were pathetic, and that the jail staff did not allow civil society members to visit and help improve ward conditions.
Khoso and his team also visited more than a dozen police stations in Khairpur and Sukkur districts, where the officials concerned had no knowledge of Juvenile Justice System Ordinance-2000, Sindh Children Act 1955 or of any other laws related to children’s rights. Similarly, the law stating that the probation officer had to be informed immediately after the arrest of any child was not in their knowledge.
Members of the civil society organisations working on children rights alleged that while higher authorities including the district police officer (DPO) had given due weightage to children’s cases, but the lower rank police staff only cared about their own vested interests.
Civil society members also said that the Sukkur DPO and Khairpur DPO have established Child Rights Desks (CRDs) at their respective headquarters, which will help to protect children from any abuse and ensure that children attain all legal rights whenever they come in conflict with the law. Unfortunately however, the performance of these CRDs has been reported to be unsatisfactory because of the scant interest shown by administrators. Civil society organisations have demanded proper monitoring of CRDs by the DPO, and the implementation of laws to protect the rights of children, especially the juveniles in prisons.
Members of the organisations said that in the past jails were institutions educating and rehabilitating prisoners to become reformed citizens, but that now they had become nurseries to help crime thrive.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=198889
By By Jan Khaskheli
Karachi
Civil society organisations working for the protection of children’s rights have urged the government to establish ‘Youthful Offenders Industrial Schools’ in jails across the province so as to ensure that juvenile inmates are provided with adequate therapy and turned into reformed citizens, The News has learnt.
Abdullah Khoso, provincial manager of Juvenile Justice Sindh - a subordinate body of Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) - told The News that jails should be turned into institutions to educate children, so that they come out as conscientious citizens when they are released instead of people reverting back to crime.
Narrating his experiences from a week-long visit to police stations and juvenile wards in northern Sindh, Khoso said that these wards were in deplorable conditions, while police officers were ignorant of juvenile laws. He said that in the absence of such facilities in northern Sindh, hundreds of juvenile prisoners become hardened criminals or turn into victims of physical and sexual abuse.
He claimed to have met 22 juveniles inmates at the juvenile ward in Khairpur Jail, where almost all children were suffering from skin allergy. Children complained that they were neither provided with medicines and proper treatment by jail authorities, nor have they been given safe drinking water. Instead, the children maintained, they were being compelled to use brackish water in prison.
Khoso said that the Sindh Prisons inspector general (IG), Sindh Police IG, Minister for Prisons as well as the Sindh Home Department have to take efficient and quality measures to improve the behaviour of police officers towards the child offenders as well as to the condition of the prisons.
While talking about the meeting he held with the Khaipur Jail deputy superintendent (DS), Khoso said that the DS told him that they had sent requests to the Home Department for installing pipelines to provide safe drinking water to juveniles. However, they were waiting to receive a response. He further added that the conditions at Larkana and Jacobabad jails’ juvenile wards were pathetic, and that the jail staff did not allow civil society members to visit and help improve ward conditions.
Khoso and his team also visited more than a dozen police stations in Khairpur and Sukkur districts, where the officials concerned had no knowledge of Juvenile Justice System Ordinance-2000, Sindh Children Act 1955 or of any other laws related to children’s rights. Similarly, the law stating that the probation officer had to be informed immediately after the arrest of any child was not in their knowledge.
Members of the civil society organisations working on children rights alleged that while higher authorities including the district police officer (DPO) had given due weightage to children’s cases, but the lower rank police staff only cared about their own vested interests.
Civil society members also said that the Sukkur DPO and Khairpur DPO have established Child Rights Desks (CRDs) at their respective headquarters, which will help to protect children from any abuse and ensure that children attain all legal rights whenever they come in conflict with the law. Unfortunately however, the performance of these CRDs has been reported to be unsatisfactory because of the scant interest shown by administrators. Civil society organisations have demanded proper monitoring of CRDs by the DPO, and the implementation of laws to protect the rights of children, especially the juveniles in prisons.
Members of the organisations said that in the past jails were institutions educating and rehabilitating prisoners to become reformed citizens, but that now they had become nurseries to help crime thrive.
http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=198889
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