New Delhi March 24: Releasing “Nobody’s children: Juveniles of Conflict Affected Districts of India”
, the first ever report on the state of juvenile justice in conflict afflicted districts of India, Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) stated that though a heated debate has been raging at national level with respect to lowering the age of juveniles in the wake of the gruesome rape of a young woman on 16th December 2012 in Delhi.
In 197 districts of India officially notified as affected by internal armed conflicts i.e. 91 districts notified as “disturbed” under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) and 106 districts declared as Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected, the edifice of the juvenile justice does not exist. Children, irrespective of their age, are treated as adult and subjected to gross human rights violations including arbitrary arrest and detention, torture, extrajudicial executions and sexual assaults as part of the counter-insurgency operations. Juveniles in these districts are denied access to juvenile justice unlike their counterparts in rest of the country.
The 197 districts which have been notified as conflict affected include 71 districts notified as “disturbed” under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Jammu and Kashmir; and 106 districts declared as Left Wing Extremism (LWE) affected in nine states of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal.
“The report highlights 15 cases of arbitrary detention and torture and six cases of detention under the Public Safety Act of Jammu and Kashmir, 15 cases of extrajudicial executions and five cases of sexual assault such as rape by the security forces. In a number of cases of these blatant violations, the National Human Rights Commission has already awarded compensation and the orders of the NHRC establish the truth beyond any reasonable doubt.” – stated Mr Suhas Chakma, Director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.
State of juvenile justice in conflict afflicted districts In 151 districts out of 197 conflict afflicted districts in 16 States i.e. 76.64% of the total conflict afflicted districts do not have Observation Homes and Special Homes implying that juveniles who are taken into custody are kept in police lock up and camps of the army and para-military forces in clear violation of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 [JJ(C&PC) Act] and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Among these States, the worst are Jammu and Kashmir which has only two Observation Homes, and Manipur which has only one Observation Cum Special Home. This denies access to justice to many juveniles detained from other districts as they need to be produced before the respective Juvenile Justice Boards (JJB) or courts in the case of Jammu and Kashmir.
In conflict afflicted districts, the Juvenile Justice Boards exist onpaper while their functioning remains deplorable. The Government of Manipur had submitted false information to the Ministry of Women and Child Development that nine JJBs had been operating in the State while in reality only one JJB was functioning. As the State government failed to establish the JJBs, the Project Approval Board (PAB) in its 35th Meeting under Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS) held on 17 January 2012 had no other option but to decide not to sanction further grants for the nine JJBs for the current Financial Year 2012- 2013 until a report on the functioning of JJBs with complete details of members, case pendency, etc are submitted by the State Government.
In Jharkhand, there were over 3,500 cases pending before various JJBs in the state as on 11 July 2012 while the Observation Home for Boys established in the LWE affected Palamau district was converted into a girl’s residential school – Kasturba Gandhi Balika Vidyalaya, and the juveniles were shifted to the Observation Home,
Ranchi, which is about 165 km away. This requires travel arrangements tobe made for the juveniles to come to Palamau district and be produced before the Juvenile Justice Board, which invariably delays justice. In Assam, replies received from JJBs under the Right to Information Act showed that not a single review of the pendency of cases before the JJBs has been conducted by the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate or Chief Judicial Magistrate in Kokrajhar district; Dibrugarh district; Darrang district; Lakhimpur district; Udalguri district; Dhubri district; Goalpara district; Barpeta district; Golaghat district; Morigaon district; Chirang district; Dhemaji district and Nagaon district from date of their constitution till 30th March 2012.(SP News)
