Legislators attending the seminar in Pakistan underlined that as parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other international instruments, States are bound to ensure respect for the rights of children in conflict with the law. Yet in spite of these State commitments and obligations, children still experience arbitrary arrest, ill- treatment and even torture while in custody.
The three-day event, hosted by the Senate of Pakistan and organized in collaboration with the IPU and UNICEF, gathered some 60 delegates from Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. They discussed the role of parliament in securing respect for the rights of children who are in conflict with the law.
The parliamentarians highlighted the need to establish juvenile justice systems built on a rights-based approach. They committed themselves to give preference to restorative measures, and to the use of diversion and alternative measures. They agreed to support the creation of separate mechanisms for children in conflict with the law that are governed by child-friendly procedures, and the development of facilities for children, such as separate police units, open observatory homes, community-based centres, and the use of alternative options to institutionalization and detention. The latter should be used as a last resort and for the shortest possible period.
The legislators also recommended close monitoring of services and visits to detention centres to collect information and protect children from any potential abuse and exploitation by the system, appropriate training for enforcement agents and adequate budgeting and budget controls.
At the end of the meeting, the participants visited a drop-in centre for child labourers (rag-pickers) in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The visit was organized by the ILOIPEC Time-Bound Programme. To date, out of the 1,330 children who have been enrolled in the centres, 159 have been mainstreamed into government schools. Drop-in centres register scavengers/rag pickers who literally "drop in" during the morning and afternoon. The centres are located in close proximity to depots in the Rawalpindi district where children perform this work.
The main activities of these drop-in centres are non-formal education, art and craft classes, literacy training, a vocational/life-skills programme, child sexual abuse prevention, health and hygiene services and awareness, and child communities. These centres have attracted considerable interest among South Asian MPs as a constructive way of providing support to children without separating them from their families.
What is the IPU?
All too often children are detained or incarcerated for committing minor, non-violent offences, or even without committing any offence at all. There are few systems specially designed to cater for the special needs of children in conflict with the law, and accurate data on the number of children detained or imprisoned is scarce. Last July, legislators from seven South Asian countries attended a regional parliamentary seminar in Pakistan on child protection and juvenile justice to address these challenges to children's rights.
