Government yet to establish Juvenile Courts

ISLAMABAD: Members of the National Juvenile Justice Network (NJJN) on Tuesday demanded that the government allocate funds to establish juvenile courts in the country.

During a press conference organised by the Society for Protection of the Rights of the Children (SPARC) here, members of the NJJN demanded that juvenile courts need to be established to deal exclusively with children less than 18 years. They called for thorough screening of the ‘Anti Terrorism Act,’ that treats children and adults in a similar manner.

Besides this, they urged the government to establish borstal institutions, appoint more female probation officers and raise the minimum age for criminal responsibility, to ensure fair and equitable treatment of all imprisoned children, including those of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and foreigners.

Executive Director SPARC Arshad Mahmood told media that the major concern with Pakistani jails is that children under 18 are kept with elder prisoners. He added that due to the lack of awareness, children are given death sentences or are kept in solitary confinement, which is in total contradiction to the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO) 2000.

“Children have to experience lengthy trials and rigorous imprisonment, which have negative physical and psychological effects,” he said.

He accused the government of being aware of the need to establish juvenile jails but taking no action.

Noor Alam Khan, an advocate from Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa  said that children as young as three years of age have been imprisoned under the Collective Responsibility Clause, which is a  serious violation of Frontier Crimes Regulations 1901. He stressed that FATA needs to be brought under JJSO 2000.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 4^th, 2010.