Measure to improve juvenile prisons

Children’s rights activists have hailed the installation of security cameras at a detention facility for juveniles in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP), calling it a step forward in conditions for young people in detention facilities. “These surveillance cameras are the first ever installed in any juvenile jail in the country, which, we think, would greatly improve the number of abuse complaints,” Jawad-ullah, regional coordinator of the country’s leading child rights’ organisation, the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC), said from the provincial capital, Peshawar, on Tuesday. The installation of security cameras at the juvenile wing of Haripur jail in late February is a collective initiative by the Juvenile Justice Network – a group of six national and international bodies, including SPARC, the Aurat Foundation, the Pakistan Paediatric Association and NWFP’s ministry of law, justice and human rights. While the Swedish branch of the child advocacy group, Save the Children, has funded the project. “To eliminate the complaints of bullying and abuse of juvenile prisoners, we came up with the idea of installing security cameras,” Mashood Ahmad Mirza, deputy director of the provincial human rights ministry, said from Peshawar. According to SPARC’s 2005 annual report, an average of 2,500 male juvenile offenders are incarcerated across Pakistan, while the number of female juvenile inmates is not known for sure as they are counted with adult female prisoners in all four provinces. Pakistan only has three separate juvenile detention facilities: two in Punjab province and another in the southern port city of Karachi in Sindh. Throughout the rest of the country young offenders are kept in adult prisons but in separate accommodation known as juvenile cells. Jail conditions in Pakistan have long been a major concern for rights activists. Complaints of inadequate food, poor sanitation and lack of medical care in overcrowded penal institutions are common, the SPARC report said. As part of its efforts to improve living conditions for imprisoned children across the country, SPARC has already started improving the country’s main juvenile prison facility in Peshawar. With financial support from the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), SPARC intends to provide recreational facilities and improved drinking water and sanitation systems inside the prison.