Young offenders in jail with adult criminals

Omba Amalako was 18 when he was first arrested for robbery two years ago and detained in the main prison in the Kasai Oriental town of Lodja, in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

Sick from a bout of malaria, he complained that he had not received any medical help. "Malaria has been striking me down for a month but nobody provides me with any appropriate medicines," he said.

He attempted to eat a meal of sweet potatoes and vegetables - the only food he would receive that day - but was promptly sick.

Fils Soteha, 15, was languishing in the jail for a second time. "I was first arrested for rape and released, but the police arrested me again for robbery after a trader accused me of stealing US $10 from him," he said.

The two were among 20 children locked up with adults in the prison - an old structure in a state of serious disrepair with some external walls broken down and parts of the roof missing.

"We have released most of the children since the law does not allow us to keep them in prison," said Tshikala Banza, interim prosecutor, during a visit to Lodja last week. "However, some of them remain in jail."

According to him, minors should be tried in juvenile courts and held in special detention facilities, but such legal niceties are non-existent in much of the DRC. At the moment, adolescents are locked up in the same cells as adults.

"The law does not admit children in prison," Tshikala explained. "A child or a minor under 18 years old cannot be placed under provisory warrant of arrest but rather in a house of supervision or of accommodation."

Photo: Eddy Isango/IRIN

Life in prison is made harder because food brought for inmates by relatives is often grabbed by officials

The presence of the children in Lodja prison does not seem to bother the adult detainees, although some do occasionally take advantage of the children and force them to work for them. "We are sometimes requested to accomplish quite hard tasks for the biggest criminals who oblige us to do a lot of work - in agriculture for example," said Amalako.

"There is a practice called bleusaille to which newcomers in the prison are subjected," he added. "Sometimes the youngest have to give the food they receive from their families to older detainees."

The initiation sometimes involves tormenting younger newcomers.

Rape and robbery charges

According to Tshikala, the legal complications of holding and trying adolescents as adults have at times led to them being released without charge. This, however, encourages them to repeat the offence and end up in jail again.

"It is a sort of vicious circle since these same children repeat the offence and are brought back to prison," said Tshikala.

Among the most common crimes are rape and robbery, for which many of the repeat offenders are charged. "Rape is among the most committed crime. We do not have statistics, but many children figure in cases of rapes and robbery," added Tshikala. "Most of the rape victims are teenage girls."

Medical personnel said some of the girls are gang-raped. "We receive every day at least 15 cases of rape and in most cases victims are young girls," said Josee Ohandji, a nurse at Lodja general hospital.

According to Joseph Oyombowano, the hospital's director, cases of rape have risen since the signing of the peace agreement that formally ended civil war in DRC.

The agreement was signed during 2002 talks in South Africa between the former government and several rebel movements, which agreed to integrate their armed factions into the official army and to withdraw child soldiers from their ranks.

"We do not really know why cases of rape of young girls have been increasing since the end of the war," said Oyombowano.

Vitalie Lubwa of the United Nations Development Programme in Kasai Oriental said some of the rapes had been committed by young demobilised soldiers. She said the rise in rape is partly a consequence of the war that ravaged the region for years.

Photo: Eddy Isango/IRIN

A visit to the derelict Lodja Prison

Other observers say local culture too encourages rape, especially because tradition favours early marriage and girls can be married off at 12. "According to tradition, one can even pay bride price for a baby girl who has just been born," said Jean-Bonnard Okitanda, the inspector of schools in Lodja.

Tradition also trivialises rape by requiring that cases of rape be amicably settled between families. "A boy who rapes a girl only needs to pay around 10 goats and pigs to the family of the victim and the matter ends there," said Okitanda.

The situation is aggravated by rampant poverty. "Often, a girl will cling to a boy so that he can buy her a skirt or pay school fees because the parents cannot afford it," said Joseph Malula, project officer with Catholic Relief Services in Lodja. "Often, the young boy will ask for sexual favours."

Lack of concern

Life in prison is made harder because food brought for the inmates by relatives is often grabbed by officials. As a result, the inmates receive meagre food rations and disease outbreaks are common.

According to Martine Berge, the official in charge of the international Roman Catholic aid agency CARITAS in Lodja, families sometimes take food to their incarcerated youngsters, but prison wardens, who often go without pay, help themselves first before handing over the leftovers to the starving inmates.

According to Oyombowano, apart from malnutrition, many inmates suffer from malaria and diarrhoeal diseases, mainly because the prison is dirty.

But hard as life may be for the inmates, people in Kasai Oriental are not very concerned about their plight. Many people complain that young rapists and robbers only go to prison to escape retribution, knowing they will eventually be released without charge.

"Prison is a haven for criminals; once the crimes have been committed, they come and seek refuge in the prison," Oyombowano explained. "The prison is not protected enough and the residents who are detained stay in of their own volition, knowing that they are free to go when they choose."

ei/re/jn/mw