Child Imprisonment

Ahmad Ali Ansari

9/29/2009
Institute of Space
Technology
Islamabad.

Child
Imprisonm
ent
(Report)
Child imprisonment
basically emerges out under
the main heading Child
Abasement. Child abuse
means a child is physically,
emotionally or sexually
abused or neglected by
parents, guardians, or
others. Child imprisonment
comes out from physically
abasement of child from
society
 Child Imprisonment

Check List:

➢ The report focuses on hot and critical

issue “Child Imprisonment”, which
is prevailing in our society very
rapidly.

➢ The fundamental intention of writing

this report is to evoke awareness
among the public about the child
incarceration.

➢ I would expect that this report should

be read by my family members, my
colleagues, my instructor Miss
Ruksana Nazeer and ofcourse the
general public and high officials
concerning human rights. The gravity
of the situation should be analyzed not only by the general people but also by the
concerned personalities and the initiatives should be taken to encounter them.

➢ This report deals with

• Definition of a child under law.

• Causes of imprisonment of children.
• Statistic regarding imprisoned children in Pakistan.
• Child abuse prevention organizations.
• Remedies of Children Imprisonment.

➢ The theme of report is so vast and many other topics can be encircled within the chose
topic but there will be no beating about the bush in the report and will be remained intact
to the topic.
 Child Imprisonment

Child Imprisonment
The report focuses on hot and critical issue “Child Imprisonment”, which is prevailing in our
society very rapidly. Child imprisonment basically emerges out under the main heading Child
Abasement. Child abuse means a child is physically, emotionally or sexually abused or
neglected by parents, guardians, or others. Child imprisonment comes out from physically
abasement of child from society.

The thing which compelled me to write this report is a photograph of an innocent child being
imprisoned in jail since her birth. The fundamental intention of writing this report is to evoke
awareness among the public about the child incarceration that a considerable figure of children
are under the custody of the government organizations which ensures law and order of a nation.
A quantity of the children has taken birth in the prison and has been there without any reason or
committing crime and the rest are there because there is no appropriate law regarding child
rights.

What would you expect from a child of just about five years or six years old, playing in the
ground, bubbling and bouncing with life and energy, hanging bag on his shoulder and going to
school, insisting his parents for chocolates, sweats and now compare this whole imagination
that everyone keeps in his mind regarding a child with the photograph. What is this? Isn’t
shocking? Without any reason the children are behind the rods of the jail……..!

Who is a child?
Now the question is who is a child as per defined by the law. 1The Juvenile Justice System
Ordinance (No XXII) was enacted on July 1, 2000 by the General Musharraf Government. The
Ordinance provides for the protection of the rights of children involved in criminal litigation and is
a significant and much needed addition to the existing corpus of child-friendly laws. Previously
there has been no legislation on this subject at the Federal level. The Provinces of Balochistan
and NWFP still lack laws dealing with juvenile offenders, while the Punjab and Sindh only have
partially enforced laws.
The Ordinance extends to the whole of Pakistan, but does not apply to the tribal areas, and the
territories comprising the Northern Areas and the State of Azad Jammu & Kashmir.

1 http://www.sparcpk.org/about_juvenile_ordinance.php
 Child Imprisonment

• The new law consolidates at the Federal level many of the provisions of the Provincial laws
dealing with juvenile justice and brings improvement in two major areas

• it sets the definition of a child at 18 years of age, raising it from 15 and 16 years in the
Provincial laws and ending the ambiguity that prevailed earlier; and

prohibits death penalty for convicts under the age of 18 years. n.

The Ordinance lays down a criterion that is to be followed at all stages of the juvenile
trial proceedings. If it is clearly defined the ages limit of a child, then why a significant
number of children are there in jails and are punishing by law enforcement agencies. This is not
only the issue of Pakistan but this issue is facing by the whole world. Several juvenile offenders
were executed during 2004. A 14 year-year-old schoolboy was flogged to death for eating in
public during the holy month of Ramadan,2 and two other young men were also executed3 In
August 2004, a sixteen year old girl was hanged, despite worldwide protests. 4 The European
Parliament condemned the execution in a resolution adopted by 105 votes, with six
abstentions.5
Causes of imprisonment of child:
Child imprisonment means to keep a child in captivity. Children are imprisoned because of two
reasons either as a punishment for any illegal activity done or the other reason is that they are
in jail is because of their imprisoned mothers

The major reason of the imprisonment of children in the world is not the presence of a proper
law and policies. Whereas the major reason of imprisonment of children in Pakistan is the
presence of a significant figure of women in jail. Among them a number of women are married
or widow and they have children of aged one to ten years. Some of them at the time of their
arrest were pregnant and gave birth to their child in the prison. Due to the dependence of
innocent child on their mother (imprisoned women) for their survival a number of children are
residing with their mothers at jail.

Imprisonment can never be the solution we all know our Pakistani police, they beat a person to
death and this is what they do to poor children. In the same way they target the children and
make them the subject to physical assault.

One thing is for sure imprisoned child may not get better but he/she may definitely become a
criminal because of the knowledge and brain washing they get in the jail during imprisonment.

Another dangerous element is of mafia. Mafia keeps an eye on such children. , as soon as they
are released they either bribe them or kidnap them and include them in their gang later they

2 Amnesty International, “Urgent Action Appeal Fear of Imminent Execution/Fear of

Flogging,” December 12, 2004; Iran Focus, November 30, 2004.

3 Id.

4 Amnesty International Report, “Stop Child Executions! Ending the Death Penalty for
Juvenile Offenders,” available at http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGACT500152004.

5 Radio Farda, “European Parliament Condemns Execution of Children and Persecution of

Journalists,” October 29, 2004
 Child Imprisonment

train them street crimes, murders and even terrorist activities. Many of us know about the 9 year
old afghan boy who was send with the bomb belt around his chest.

Statistic concerning imprisoned children in Pakistan:

Inspectorate of imprisonment data available with The Nation on state of juveniles in Pakistan as
on July 31, 2009 revealed that a total of 1,511 juveniles were in country’s jails including 903 in
jails of Punjab, 329 in Sindh, 223 in NWFP and 56 in Balochistan.6

The official record also informed that out of total juveniles 145 are convicted while 1,366 are
under trial. According to legal experts, most of the children spent a considerable time in
miserable living condition in prisons for petty crimes.

Child abuse prevention organizations:

In the world unfortunately there are few organizations which are fighting for the rights of the
children. Some of main organizations among them are:

ISPCAN (International Society for prevention of child abuse and neglect):

The International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect, founded in 1977, is
the only multidisciplinary international organization that brings together a worldwide
cross-section of committed professionals to work towards the prevention and treatment
of child abuse, neglect and exploitation globally.7

CAPA (Child Abuse Prevention Association):

CAPA’s mission is to prevent all forms of child abuse by creating changes in individuals,
families and society that strengthen relationships and promote healing.8

UNICEF:

United Nations Children's Fund: an agency of the United Nations responsible for
programs to aid education and the health of children and mothers in developing
countries. UNICEF was created in December 1946 by the United Nations to provide
food, clothing and health care to European children facing famine and disease. It is also
working for the protection of children’s right all over the world. 9

SPARC (Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child):

6 http://www.nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-newspaper-daily-english-
online/Regional/Islamabad/10-Sep-2009/Child-offenders-languish-in-prisons

7 http://www.ispcan.org/aboutISPCAN.htm

8 http://www.childabuseprevention.org/

9 http://www.google.com.pk/search?hl=en&defl=en&q=define:unicef&ei=p8y7Sv-
sOc2CkQWGoMycDQ&sa=X&oi=glossary_definition&ct=title
 Child Imprisonment

In the midst of organizations working for the protection of children’s right, SPARC is in
the lime light. SPARC is a Pakistan-based child abuse prevention organization. In its
annual report titled 'The State of Pakistan's Children-2006', SPARC stated that child
abuse in Pakistan is on the rise and that around four Pakistan children are abused
everyday and that Pakistan had the highest maternal and infant mortality rates in South
Asia.

Remedies of Children Imprisonment:

The initiatives should be taken by the government. The policy makers, should ponder upon the
issue regarding imprisonment of children, should identify the major cause of this imprisonment
and should make policies so that the curse of children imprisonment could be eliminated from
the society. The issue should be brought to the parliament and the parliamentarians should
think over that and consensually should decide to pass law to prevent innocent child from
imprisonment.

The above mentioned remedy can be included in long term planning and it will take time to
make laws. In short terms children of imprisoned mothers should be handed over to the finest
care takers may it be the other family member or any charity institution, but in any case he/she
must be kept miles away from the prison.

Although we have separate juvenile jails but still we should have a separate jail for the
murderers. During imprisonment proper education should be given, entertainment such as
sports should be provided, counseling should be done, health should be monitored on daily
basis, psychiatric sessions should be held and last but not the least they should be ensured
proper employment when they are released.

Critical Analysis:

Child imprisonment is an assassination on the rights of the children. It is an alarming situation

not for Pakistan but also for the whole world that the number of imprisoned children is
increasing day by day. Pakistan is also suffering in this aspect. It is to be mentioned here that
the rights of children in Pakistan suffered a major setback, when in December 2004 a Lahore
High Court judgment revoked the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), because it found
it to be “impractical”, “unreasonable” and “unconstitutional”.

On January 11, 2005, the federal government and Islamabad-based local NGO Society for the
Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) got a stay order. After pending for long time the
hearing of this vital case of the striking down of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance JJSO
2000 was taken up in the Supreme Court of Pakistan in recent past This is what is happening In
Pakistan. This is not the sorry situation of Pakistan but the same is happening in other countries
of the world too.

Conclusion:
A child is the future of a nation. He has to run a nation in the coming era. If he is brought up
well, the nation will flourish and will progress in all fields of life and if he is brought up
inadequately, the nation will have to be caught by Tartary very soon. The need here is to
provide quality of education to children and to provide, not a much better but a little bit better life
to them (for developing and poor countries). Same is the case for the imprisoned children
 Child Imprisonment

because they are also the future of a nation. If they are supposed to live in the jail and spent
their whole childhood in prison, then after coming out of the jail, they will become black sheep of
the society and will try to retaliate by abolishing and demolishing the nation. They easily become
puppet in the hands of enemies of a nation which exploit them to achieve their evil goals. The
solution of this imprisonment is not only essential for the rights of children but also for a nation
to prosper in the future.