Punishing Juveniles: A Case Study of Inhuman Sentencing in Pakistan
Hania Riffat is a legal literacy and empowerment practitioner having founded her own legal startup by the name LawFem through which she aims to empower vulnerable segments of society.
Introduction
Pakistan for over two decades has been facing staunch international criticism upon its failure to meet its international law obligations set under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child (UNCRC) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). A significant chunk of this criticism is premised on inhuman punishments awarded to juvenile offenders which include death penalty, life imprisonment and corporal punishment. Pakistan by promulgating the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance in 2000 and later the Juvenile Justice System Act in 2018 has attempted to improve the state of rights of juvenile offenders. The article delves into how successful Pakistan’s legislative endeavors have been in bringing sentencing of juvenile offenders in line with international human rights standards. It critically analyses the current legislative regime covering death penalty, life imprisonment and corporal punishment of juveniles and highlights areas for reform to maximise the protection of human rights of juvenile offenders.
Death Penalty
Pakistan ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child in November 1990 with a general reservation that its implementation would be in light of Islamic values and principles. Articles 37 (a) and 40 of the UNCRC propound the conditions for detention, trial, sentencing and punishment of juvenile offenders by laying down that ‘neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment would be imposed for offences committed by persons when below eighteen years of age.’ Additionally the ICCPR, to which Pakistan is a party, puts an explicit bar on the execution of juveniles. However, it took Pakistan a long time to bring its domestic law in consonance with the treaty articles and meanwhile cases of juveniles being awarded death penalty surfaced.
Pakistan took centre stage in 1993 when five teenagers between the age of sixteen and nineteen at the time of commission of the offence of murder and kidnapping for ransom, were awarded two death sentences each by a Special Anti-terrorism Court. The concerned judge, while announcing the judgement, passed a remark which encapsulated the essence of the insensitivity juvenile offenders are subjected to by the criminal justice system. Reportedly, the judge remarked “one can only guess what havoc they will play when they are grown up. They deserve deterrent punishment for the gruesome abduction and subsequent murder of the child”. This was not the first grim instance of inhuman sentencing. In 1991, a person reported to be sixteen at the time of the commission of the offence of murder was awarded a death sentence.
Similarly Muhammad Iqbal, seventeen years of age at the time of the alleged murder was sentenced to death after which he spent nearly twenty two years on death row before his sentence was commuted by the Lahore High Court (Muhammad Iqbal vs. Province of Punjab, Writ Petition No. 24302/2019). The tipping point, however, came in 1995 when Salamat Masihreported to be between eleven to twelve years of age was arrested after allegations of blasphemy were levelled against him and later a trial court sentenced him to death. Amidst mass international protests of human rights organisations, Salamat was acquitted by the High Court on 23rd February 1995 after spending nearly two weeks in a death cell.
The first step to prohibit the award of death penalty to juvenile offenders was the promulgation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO 2000) in 2000 by the Government of Pakistan. However, despite the prohibition hundreds of suspected juvenile offenders were sentenced. The implementation of the JJSO 2000 was marred by multifaceted legislative and administrative lacunae. Although Section 10 of the JJSO 2000 espoused the duty of the arresting officer to determine whether the person arrested is a juvenile or an adult, police officers more often than not in order to evade the protection accorded to juvenile offenders reported them to be adults in First Investigation Reports. Apart from the flawed age determination procedure the lack of retrospective effect reflected from a bare statute reading meant that juveniles accorded death sentences before the promulgation of the JJSO 2000 were being denied protection of the law. This matter was partially addressed when pursuant to Article 45 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan a Presidential Notification commuting all death sentences of juveniles to life imprisonment was issued by the President. Although later in 2004 this Notification was confirmed by the Lahore High Court, many suspected juveniles sentenced to death prior to the Notification continue to be denied an inquiry into their claim of juvenility by provincial home departments and the courts. Courts frequently deny requests for age determination for juveniles sentenced prior to the enactment of the JJSO 2000 on the grounds that on account of all appeals having been exhausted the question of the age cannot be reopened or even worse, that a plea of juvenility may only be raised during the investigation or trial.
On 16th December 2014, the Government of Pakistan lifted the six year de facto moratorium on death penalty and since then there is credible evidence showing the execution of six juvenile offenders who were underage at the time of the commission of the offence. One such instance is of Aftab Bahadur who was fifteen years at the time of the murder of a woman and her two children but was executed in 2015 despite persistent pleas of juvenility, raising serious concerns on the efficacy of the JJSO 2000. In 2018, the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 was repealed and the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 (JJSA 2018) was enacted and hailed as an impactful measure of safeguarding the rights of juvenile offenders. Retaining most of the substantive content of the JJSO 2000, the JJSA 2018 additionally introduced the establishment of special juvenile courts and laid down the method of arrest of a juvenile which were unprecedented yet much needed measures.
However, this law too has not been completely able to uproot inhuman sentencing of juvenile offenders since the process of age determination still remains the discretion of police who may or may not adhere to the procedure laid down and at times without age determination report children as adults to avoid the safeguards accorded to children under the JJSA 2018. Furthermore, failure to provide children with quality legal assistance when they come in interaction with the law enforcement agencies, a partial failure in attuning the juvenile courts to better protect the special needs of juvenile offenders and failure to establish specialised detention centres for juveniles are few of the lacunae in the JJSA 2018. Nevertheless, this law has been deemed a significant legislative achievement for the protection of the rights of juvenile offenders especially in the face of inhuman sentencing.
Life Imprisonment
As per Article 37(a) of the UNCRC neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without conditions of release can be imposed on persons for offences committed when below the age of eighteen. The JJSO 2000 and subsequently the JJSA 2018 do not prohibit life imprisonment of juvenile offenders as a consequence of which a significant number of juveniles are currently serving life sentences across the length and breadth of the country. There is no official, regularly updated data to provide statistics regarding the exact number of juveniles facing serious sentences across various jails in Pakistan. A research, conducted by Legal Awareness Watch Pakistan, targeting twenty out of the total 106 prisons functioning under the Ministry of Interior, brought to light that at least 87 children were either serving a serious sentence or were likely to be sentenced to life in accordance with the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 (PPC). As postulated in the PPC there are more than fifty offences for which a juvenile could be handed down a life sentence, which as per the PPC itself is considered equivalent to imprisonment of twenty five years, and may be commuted to a sentence of fourteen years.
In addition there are certain special laws in force under which juveniles can face life imprisonment like the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997 and the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. The Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on torture has highlighted that life imprisonment and lengthy sentences awarded to juvenile offenders are ‘grossly disproportionate’ and amount to ‘cruel and inhumane treatment.’ Despite the international human rights consensus that life imprisonment and solitary confinement are against Pakistan’s international law obligations, there is no clear legislation prohibiting award of life sentences to those who commit offences when under eighteen. Although section 15 of the JJSA 2018 provides that juvenile offenders may be sent to rehabilitation facilities and corrective instead of retributive measures be taken against them, the courts of Pakistan seem to be inclined towards awarding life sentences to juvenile offenders as seen in the developing jurisprudence of High Courts of various provinces.
Abdul Ghani v. The State (2021 YLRN 108) is a recent judicial pronouncement of the Balochistan High Court, where the sentence of a juvenile convicted for zina (fornication) was increased from ten years to life imprisonment. In Niazbullah v. Liaq ur Rehman (2015 YLR 402), the Peshawar High Court set aside the judgement of a trial court which had acquitted the juvenile accused of being an accomplice in a crime of murder and instead awarded him life imprisonment. In Naseebullah v. The State (2014 PLD 69), the Peshawar High Court opined that juveniles could ‘never be allowed to abuse/ take concession of statutory protection’ and rather ‘involvement in a flagitious crime must be meted out stringent punishment to discourage involvement of minors.’Although there have been various instances where on fair grounds the sentences awarded to juvenile offenders have been set aside, nevertheless, owing to the lack of legislative prohibition the general attitude of the Courts has been in favour of long sentences and stringent punishments, which is against the internationally accepted position of juvenile rights.
Corporal Punishment
Pakistan has a long history of corporal punishment being legal for juveniles which has attracted sharp criticism from human rights organisations and institutions. In 1996, Pakistan’s legislature took the first attempt to illegalise corporal punishment by promulgating a special law that prohibits whipping as a punishment but the law does not apply to Hadd Offences, for which corporal punishment is applicable to children from the onset of puberty. Article 7 of the Offence of Qazf Ordinance 1979, Article 5 of the Offence of Zina Ordinance 1979, several articles of the Prohibition Ordinance 1979 and Articles 17 and 21 of the Offences against Property Ordinance 1979, all propound whipping as a lawful punishment. Article 9 of the Offences against Property Ordinance stipulates the amputation of the right hand for the first offence and of the left leg for the second offence. The Execution of the Punishment of Whipping Ordinance 1979 put forth the requirement of a medical personnel who has to ensure that the person to whom the whipping sentence has been handed down is medically in a state where the whipping does not result in the death of the convict.
Pakistan after 2000 has put in place stronger legislation prohibiting corporal punishment of juveniles while in custody; as per Section 16 of the JJSA 2018 death sentence, handcuffing and all forms of corporal punishment are prohibited. The JJSA 2018 also overrides all contrary provisions, adding value and strength to the law. In addition to this, the Borstal Institutions Act 2012 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act 2016, the Gilgit Baltistan Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act and the Islamabad Capital Territory Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act 2021 explicitly prohibit corporal punishment of juveniles in penal institutions of the Juvenile Justice System. However, Pakistan has not been completely successful in abolishing corporal punishment as a sentence for crime. A reason for this can be the lack of clarity in the wording of Article 16(2) of the JJSA 2018 which espouses that no child can be given corporal punishment when in custody; which begs the question whether a child not given a custodial sentence can be lawfully subjected to corporal punishment. Article 16 of JJSA 2018 is a repetition of Article 12 of JJSO 2000, the interpretation of which by the Government of Pakistan in 2017 was that no child can be awarded ‘degrading punishment such as death sentence, handcuffing or any other corporal punishment.’ (CESCR, initial report, para 114)
Despite the stringent legal regime, the implementation of the law is poor and has been a cause for concern for international human rights bodies as well as for activists. The lacunae in age determination coupled with lack of transparency in the accountability of the management of penal institutions have resulted in corporal punishment still being rampant especially during pretrial detention in police stations. The prevalence of parallel judicial system or unregulated alternative dispute resolution in the form of ‘panchyats’ (elective village councils) and ‘jirgas’ (tribal councils) has also been a grave reason for the prevalence of corporal punishments faced by juveniles as was noted by the Committee against Torture (UNCAT, concluding observationson the initial report). There is room for policy intervention to curb the menace of corporal punishment inflicted upon juveniles by penal institutions that are part of our Juvenile Justice System.
Conclusion
While the proposition that Pakistan has made ‘substantial’ progress in improving the state of basic rights of juvenile offenders may not stand ground owing to the lacunae in our criminal justice system as pointed above, there surely have been legislative and administrative efforts to improve the state of juvenile rights. In order to bring our current legal regime on sentencing of juvenile offenders fully at par with international human rights standards it is pertinent that there is uniformity in all the domestic laws in Pakistan regarding the definition of ‘child.’ Currently even the PPC gives more than one definition of ‘child,’ it would only be after this uniformity in basic legislation that steps could be taken to amend and repeal provisions in various laws on inhuman sentencing of juveniles, especially life imprisonment. Legislation alone cannot solely end the violation of juvenile rights in Pakistan; administrative steps arising out of a multi stakeholder coordinated effort especially the sensitization of judiciary and prosecutors in juvenile courts in particular is crucial. Frequently, the process for age determination is not carried out in pre-trial stages and when juveniles fail to produce their identification documents to confirm their age, they are reported by police officials as adults which makes them prone to serious threats of human rights violations.
The Government of Pakistan needs to make consistent efforts on an emergency basis to increase the birth registration process which currently is one of the lowest in Punjab with nearly ten million children below the age of five being unregistered. Moreover, there has to be more legislative emphasis on age determination by arresting officers through medical processes in case there is no previous record to disclose the exact age of the juvenile offender. Legislative amendments, the sensitization of the entire criminal justice system coupled with a transparent process of administrative accountability can end the violations of the rights of juveniles.
Disclaimer: Any and all opinions and views represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the author(s) of the blog and do not represent the opinions or views of the Centre for Human Rights.
Hania Riffat is a legal literacy and empowerment practitioner having founded her own legal startup by the name LawFem through which she aims to empower vulnerable segments of society.
Introduction
Pakistan for over two decades has been facing staunch international criticism upon its failure to meet its international law obligations set under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child (UNCRC) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). A significant chunk of this criticism is premised on inhuman punishments awarded to juvenile offenders which include death penalty, life imprisonment and corporal punishment. Pakistan by promulgating the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance in 2000 and later the Juvenile Justice System Act in 2018 has attempted to improve the state of rights of juvenile offenders. The article delves into how successful Pakistan’s legislative endeavors have been in bringing sentencing of juvenile offenders in line with international human rights standards. It critically analyses the current legislative regime covering death penalty, life imprisonment and corporal punishment of juveniles and highlights areas for reform to maximise the protection of human rights of juvenile offenders.
Death Penalty
Pakistan ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Child in November 1990 with a general reservation that its implementation would be in light of Islamic values and principles. Articles 37 (a) and 40 of the UNCRC propound the conditions for detention, trial, sentencing and punishment of juvenile offenders by laying down that ‘neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment would be imposed for offences committed by persons when below eighteen years of age.’ Additionally the ICCPR, to which Pakistan is a party, puts an explicit bar on the execution of juveniles. However, it took Pakistan a long time to bring its domestic law in consonance with the treaty articles and meanwhile cases of juveniles being awarded death penalty surfaced.
Pakistan took centre stage in 1993 when five teenagers between the age of sixteen and nineteen at the time of commission of the offence of murder and kidnapping for ransom, were awarded two death sentences each by a Special Anti-terrorism Court. The concerned judge, while announcing the judgement, passed a remark which encapsulated the essence of the insensitivity juvenile offenders are subjected to by the criminal justice system. Reportedly, the judge remarked “one can only guess what havoc they will play when they are grown up. They deserve deterrent punishment for the gruesome abduction and subsequent murder of the child”. This was not the first grim instance of inhuman sentencing. In 1991, a person reported to be sixteen at the time of the commission of the offence of murder was awarded a death sentence.
Similarly Muhammad Iqbal, seventeen years of age at the time of the alleged murder was sentenced to death after which he spent nearly twenty two years on death row before his sentence was commuted by the Lahore High Court (Muhammad Iqbal vs. Province of Punjab, Writ Petition No. 24302/2019). The tipping point, however, came in 1995 when Salamat Masihreported to be between eleven to twelve years of age was arrested after allegations of blasphemy were levelled against him and later a trial court sentenced him to death. Amidst mass international protests of human rights organisations, Salamat was acquitted by the High Court on 23rd February 1995 after spending nearly two weeks in a death cell.
The first step to prohibit the award of death penalty to juvenile offenders was the promulgation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO 2000) in 2000 by the Government of Pakistan. However, despite the prohibition hundreds of suspected juvenile offenders were sentenced. The implementation of the JJSO 2000 was marred by multifaceted legislative and administrative lacunae. Although Section 10 of the JJSO 2000 espoused the duty of the arresting officer to determine whether the person arrested is a juvenile or an adult, police officers more often than not in order to evade the protection accorded to juvenile offenders reported them to be adults in First Investigation Reports. Apart from the flawed age determination procedure the lack of retrospective effect reflected from a bare statute reading meant that juveniles accorded death sentences before the promulgation of the JJSO 2000 were being denied protection of the law. This matter was partially addressed when pursuant to Article 45 of the Constitution of Islamic Republic of Pakistan a Presidential Notification commuting all death sentences of juveniles to life imprisonment was issued by the President. Although later in 2004 this Notification was confirmed by the Lahore High Court, many suspected juveniles sentenced to death prior to the Notification continue to be denied an inquiry into their claim of juvenility by provincial home departments and the courts. Courts frequently deny requests for age determination for juveniles sentenced prior to the enactment of the JJSO 2000 on the grounds that on account of all appeals having been exhausted the question of the age cannot be reopened or even worse, that a plea of juvenility may only be raised during the investigation or trial.
On 16th December 2014, the Government of Pakistan lifted the six year de facto moratorium on death penalty and since then there is credible evidence showing the execution of six juvenile offenders who were underage at the time of the commission of the offence. One such instance is of Aftab Bahadur who was fifteen years at the time of the murder of a woman and her two children but was executed in 2015 despite persistent pleas of juvenility, raising serious concerns on the efficacy of the JJSO 2000. In 2018, the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 was repealed and the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 (JJSA 2018) was enacted and hailed as an impactful measure of safeguarding the rights of juvenile offenders. Retaining most of the substantive content of the JJSO 2000, the JJSA 2018 additionally introduced the establishment of special juvenile courts and laid down the method of arrest of a juvenile which were unprecedented yet much needed measures.
However, this law too has not been completely able to uproot inhuman sentencing of juvenile offenders since the process of age determination still remains the discretion of police who may or may not adhere to the procedure laid down and at times without age determination report children as adults to avoid the safeguards accorded to children under the JJSA 2018. Furthermore, failure to provide children with quality legal assistance when they come in interaction with the law enforcement agencies, a partial failure in attuning the juvenile courts to better protect the special needs of juvenile offenders and failure to establish specialised detention centres for juveniles are few of the lacunae in the JJSA 2018. Nevertheless, this law has been deemed a significant legislative achievement for the protection of the rights of juvenile offenders especially in the face of inhuman sentencing.
Life Imprisonment
As per Article 37(a) of the UNCRC neither capital punishment nor life imprisonment without conditions of release can be imposed on persons for offences committed when below the age of eighteen. The JJSO 2000 and subsequently the JJSA 2018 do not prohibit life imprisonment of juvenile offenders as a consequence of which a significant number of juveniles are currently serving life sentences across the length and breadth of the country. There is no official, regularly updated data to provide statistics regarding the exact number of juveniles facing serious sentences across various jails in Pakistan. A research, conducted by Legal Awareness Watch Pakistan, targeting twenty out of the total 106 prisons functioning under the Ministry of Interior, brought to light that at least 87 children were either serving a serious sentence or were likely to be sentenced to life in accordance with the Pakistan Penal Code, 1860 (PPC). As postulated in the PPC there are more than fifty offences for which a juvenile could be handed down a life sentence, which as per the PPC itself is considered equivalent to imprisonment of twenty five years, and may be commuted to a sentence of fourteen years.
In addition there are certain special laws in force under which juveniles can face life imprisonment like the Control of Narcotic Substances Act, 1997 and the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997. The Report of the UN Special Rapporteur on torture has highlighted that life imprisonment and lengthy sentences awarded to juvenile offenders are ‘grossly disproportionate’ and amount to ‘cruel and inhumane treatment.’ Despite the international human rights consensus that life imprisonment and solitary confinement are against Pakistan’s international law obligations, there is no clear legislation prohibiting award of life sentences to those who commit offences when under eighteen. Although section 15 of the JJSA 2018 provides that juvenile offenders may be sent to rehabilitation facilities and corrective instead of retributive measures be taken against them, the courts of Pakistan seem to be inclined towards awarding life sentences to juvenile offenders as seen in the developing jurisprudence of High Courts of various provinces.
Abdul Ghani v. The State (2021 YLRN 108) is a recent judicial pronouncement of the Balochistan High Court, where the sentence of a juvenile convicted for zina (fornication) was increased from ten years to life imprisonment. In Niazbullah v. Liaq ur Rehman (2015 YLR 402), the Peshawar High Court set aside the judgement of a trial court which had acquitted the juvenile accused of being an accomplice in a crime of murder and instead awarded him life imprisonment. In Naseebullah v. The State (2014 PLD 69), the Peshawar High Court opined that juveniles could ‘never be allowed to abuse/ take concession of statutory protection’ and rather ‘involvement in a flagitious crime must be meted out stringent punishment to discourage involvement of minors.’Although there have been various instances where on fair grounds the sentences awarded to juvenile offenders have been set aside, nevertheless, owing to the lack of legislative prohibition the general attitude of the Courts has been in favour of long sentences and stringent punishments, which is against the internationally accepted position of juvenile rights.
Corporal Punishment
Pakistan has a long history of corporal punishment being legal for juveniles which has attracted sharp criticism from human rights organisations and institutions. In 1996, Pakistan’s legislature took the first attempt to illegalise corporal punishment by promulgating a special law that prohibits whipping as a punishment but the law does not apply to Hadd Offences, for which corporal punishment is applicable to children from the onset of puberty. Article 7 of the Offence of Qazf Ordinance 1979, Article 5 of the Offence of Zina Ordinance 1979, several articles of the Prohibition Ordinance 1979 and Articles 17 and 21 of the Offences against Property Ordinance 1979, all propound whipping as a lawful punishment. Article 9 of the Offences against Property Ordinance stipulates the amputation of the right hand for the first offence and of the left leg for the second offence. The Execution of the Punishment of Whipping Ordinance 1979 put forth the requirement of a medical personnel who has to ensure that the person to whom the whipping sentence has been handed down is medically in a state where the whipping does not result in the death of the convict.
Pakistan after 2000 has put in place stronger legislation prohibiting corporal punishment of juveniles while in custody; as per Section 16 of the JJSA 2018 death sentence, handcuffing and all forms of corporal punishment are prohibited. The JJSA 2018 also overrides all contrary provisions, adding value and strength to the law. In addition to this, the Borstal Institutions Act 2012 of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the Sindh Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act 2016, the Gilgit Baltistan Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act and the Islamabad Capital Territory Prohibition of Corporal Punishment Act 2021 explicitly prohibit corporal punishment of juveniles in penal institutions of the Juvenile Justice System. However, Pakistan has not been completely successful in abolishing corporal punishment as a sentence for crime. A reason for this can be the lack of clarity in the wording of Article 16(2) of the JJSA 2018 which espouses that no child can be given corporal punishment when in custody; which begs the question whether a child not given a custodial sentence can be lawfully subjected to corporal punishment. Article 16 of JJSA 2018 is a repetition of Article 12 of JJSO 2000, the interpretation of which by the Government of Pakistan in 2017 was that no child can be awarded ‘degrading punishment such as death sentence, handcuffing or any other corporal punishment.’ (CESCR, initial report, para 114)
Despite the stringent legal regime, the implementation of the law is poor and has been a cause for concern for international human rights bodies as well as for activists. The lacunae in age determination coupled with lack of transparency in the accountability of the management of penal institutions have resulted in corporal punishment still being rampant especially during pretrial detention in police stations. The prevalence of parallel judicial system or unregulated alternative dispute resolution in the form of ‘panchyats’ (elective village councils) and ‘jirgas’ (tribal councils) has also been a grave reason for the prevalence of corporal punishments faced by juveniles as was noted by the Committee against Torture (UNCAT, concluding observationson the initial report). There is room for policy intervention to curb the menace of corporal punishment inflicted upon juveniles by penal institutions that are part of our Juvenile Justice System.
Conclusion
While the proposition that Pakistan has made ‘substantial’ progress in improving the state of basic rights of juvenile offenders may not stand ground owing to the lacunae in our criminal justice system as pointed above, there surely have been legislative and administrative efforts to improve the state of juvenile rights. In order to bring our current legal regime on sentencing of juvenile offenders fully at par with international human rights standards it is pertinent that there is uniformity in all the domestic laws in Pakistan regarding the definition of ‘child.’ Currently even the PPC gives more than one definition of ‘child,’ it would only be after this uniformity in basic legislation that steps could be taken to amend and repeal provisions in various laws on inhuman sentencing of juveniles, especially life imprisonment. Legislation alone cannot solely end the violation of juvenile rights in Pakistan; administrative steps arising out of a multi stakeholder coordinated effort especially the sensitization of judiciary and prosecutors in juvenile courts in particular is crucial. Frequently, the process for age determination is not carried out in pre-trial stages and when juveniles fail to produce their identification documents to confirm their age, they are reported by police officials as adults which makes them prone to serious threats of human rights violations.
The Government of Pakistan needs to make consistent efforts on an emergency basis to increase the birth registration process which currently is one of the lowest in Punjab with nearly ten million children below the age of five being unregistered. Moreover, there has to be more legislative emphasis on age determination by arresting officers through medical processes in case there is no previous record to disclose the exact age of the juvenile offender. Legislative amendments, the sensitization of the entire criminal justice system coupled with a transparent process of administrative accountability can end the violations of the rights of juveniles.
Disclaimer: Any and all opinions and views represented in this blog are personal and belong solely to the author(s) of the blog and do not represent the opinions or views of the Centre for Human Rights.
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