A view of government juvenile home at Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala. Rights activists allege that most of the children homes in India do not have adequate physical facilities to rehabilitate and reform delinquent children. Credit: K.S.Harikrishnan/IPS

By K. S. Harikrishnan
NEW DELHI, Jan 26 2016 (IPS)

Civil rights groups and child welfare activists have strongly protested against the enactment of a new Juvenile Justice Act by the Indian parliament, lowering the age of a legally defined juvenile for trial from 18 to 16- years old in heinous crimes cases.

Human rights activists and people working for child welfare say reducing the age would be against the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which India ratified in 1992.

According to the existing law in India, formed in 2000, the accused under the age of 18 cannot be given any penalty higher than three years, nor be tried as an adult and sent to an adult jail. The new law also treats all children under the age of 18 similarly, except for one difference. It states that any one between 16 and 18 who commits a heinous offence may be tried as an adult.

The ongoing heated debates and protests started against the backdrop of the higher appeal courts’ permission to release one of the main accused in the high profile 2012 Delhi gang-rape case. The boy was a juvenile, from a reform home at the end of his three-year remand period.

The case relates to a horrific incident on 16 December 2012, when a 23-year-old female physiotherapy intern was beaten and gang raped in a moving private transport bus in which she was travelling with a male friend at night.

Dr. Pushkar Raj, well-known human rights leader and former General Secretary of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, said that the move of the government to pass tougher laws on juveniles was ill-conceived and would not achieve the intended purpose of reducing crimes amongst juveniles.

“Though juvenile crime has slightly risen in India in last few years, it stands half as compared to US and Australia. While in India it hovers under 1500 per 100,000 of juvenile population, in the US and Australia it is well above 3000 per 100,000,” he told IPS.

The National Crime Records Bureau data says that there has been an increase in crimes committed by juveniles, especially by those in the 16 to 18 age group during the period 2003 to 2013.

The data shows that the percentage of juvenile crimes has increased from one per cent in 2003 to 1.2 per cent in 2013. During the same period, 16-18 year olds accused of crimes as a percentage of all juveniles accused of crimes increased from 54 per cent to 66 per cent.

Experts, however, say that the new law would go against the global commitment of India to child rights.

Shoba Koshy, Chairperson, Kerala State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, told IPS that whatever may be the logic behind the lowering of age, it is not acceptable as seen from a child rights perspective. She expressed the apprehension that the new law would be counterproductive until and unless correct remedial measures are taken.

“We have committed ourselves both nationally and internationally to protect child rights up to the age of 18 years.
Therefore, the new amended law is not suitable to this norm. Even if you reduce the age to 16 and then a 15-year old commits a similar crime, would you again reduce the age,” she asked.

“There are several unattended issues concerning children which need to be looked into. We should help our children to grow up to be good individuals by providing systems that will give them the care and protection they deserve in their childhood and by imparting proper education and moral values. The government should allocate more funds for strengthening infrastructure facility to develop reformative and rehabilitative mechanisms under the Juvenile Justice Law, “she said.

The National Human Rights Commission also disagreed with the government move and sent its disagreement in writing to the government.

Media reported that the rights panel opined that every boy at 16 years would be treated as juvenile. “If he is sent to jail, there is no likelihood of any reformation and he will come out a hardened criminal. “

However, participating in the debate in Parliament, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi said that under the new law any juvenile aged between 16 and 18 years will stay in an institution meant for housing adolescent offenders till the age of 21 years, whatever the sentence.

A study report in 2013 on ‘Factors Underlying Juvenile Delinquency and Positive Youth Development Programs’, prepared by Kavita Sahney of the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, National Institute of Technology at Rourkela in Odisha, revealed that offences committed by delinquents were primarily due to the combination of various individual and environmental variables, individual risk factors of the delinquents, negligence and ignorance of the parents, peer influence, poor socio-economic status, family pressure and lack of proper socialization.

A section of women activists and members of parliament believe that the new law neither gives safety to women from crimes against them nor gives protection to the children involved in such cases.

Dr. T.N. Seema, Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader and parliament member in the Upper House, expressed deep anguish over the “encroachment” by the government on the rights of children.

“Most of the juvenile homes in the country do not have a good atmosphere and enough physical facilities to reside delinquent children. In such a situation, how can we reform juveniles?” she told IPS.

T. P. Lakshmi, an activist at Nagarkovil in Tamil Nadu, said that the government succumbed to the “pressure tactics” of a section of women’s groups “taking mileage from the Delhi rape case.” “It is unfortunate that one or two rape cases determine the fate of all the boys accused in juvenile cases in the country,” she said.

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The right to a legal identity is fundamental to meeting all other rights and protect a child from other forms of abuse and exploitation. Pictured here children in Kafue, Zambia. Credit: Brian Moonga/IPS

By Martin Mogwanja and Carlos Lopes
ADDIS ABABA , May 24 2013 (IPS)

There is much to celebrate this week as the African Union marks 50 years as an independent pan-African entity. 

In the last half century, Africa has witnessed an era of self-determination and independence. As the continent looks to the next 50 years, the focus must be on how to build an inclusive future based on the aspirations and rights of the continent’s more than one billion citizens.

This will rely on every country in the AU being equipped to lay the best foundation for their youngest citizens, their children.

Yet, as the talk of Africa’s new economic potential increases and more countries move into the middle income ranks, the reality is that this young continent, with half of its population under the age of 18, still has much to do if this youth dividend is to lead to a stable, democratic and fairer place where its young people can reach adulthood.

Under the AU, many progressive plans for human rights and development have been agreed.  Many of them are built on the best of international law, policy and practice. Many of them are built on the basis that the continent’s people, and especially its children, are its greatest asset.

Despite these noble commitments, there is a silent scandal that needs to be urgently addressed: the scandal of invisibility. Across the continent, millions are born and millions die with their lives unrecorded.  For example, only 44 percent of children under five years of age have their births registered.  The majority of these live in rural or remote areas and many are poor and on the periphery of Africa’s new wealth and prosperity.

One only needs to look at other successful developed regions to realise that effective, efficient and modern systems of civil registration and vital statistics form the basis of good governance, economic integration and offer the security of identity that all people require.

How can a country plan when it does not know how many people are born and where? How can a government build a health system if it does not know how many die, where and of what cause?

Conducting a census every few years is a key. But strong vital statistics based on real-time information provide leaders and decision-makers with the knowledge required to plan and deliver basic services.

The right to a legal identity, enshrined in the African Charter of the Rights and Welfare of the Child and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, is fundamental to meeting all other rights and protect a child from other forms of abuse and exploitation.

In some countries, proof of birth through a birth certificate can determine whether a child has access to primary school – or not. In others, its absence can mean a girl may be forced into early marriage because even with a law in place, she has no document to prove that she is still too young.  In yet other countries, it means that boys and girls can be forced into armed factions or exploited as cheap labour – because people with the interests of children at heart cannot make a case for exempting those too young to serve.

So if arguments for building strong civil registration and vital statistics are well accepted, why are we still not yet seeing them translated into results on the ground?

Momentum is building. African leaders agreed in 2012 to make this a priority and regular ministerial meetings are held every two years to share expertise and help strengthen civil registration systems.

Under the auspices of the Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics, African governments are now working alongside the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank and other U.N. agencies to provide the technical support needed to help build effective systems.

We have seen the introduction in some countries of technology and innovations to help leap frog progress. The U.N. Children’s Fund, with support from the European Union, is identifying ways to use new technology to increase birth registration and expand services to remote areas.

Coordination between ministries and between local, state and national governments is improving and initiatives such as setting up registration sites in hospitals and health clinics are also helping to increase the numbers of newborns being reached.

But even with this success, progress is still too slow, with too many people not registered and technological and digital advances not being introduced in areas where they could make a dramatic difference.

In remote and rural regions, civil registers often struggle, due to inadequate transport or a lack of incentives, to reach their constituents and instead wait for people to come to them. Often parents do not understand the importance of their child being registered or the contribution it could make to a country’s national development. Often budgets are inadequate to roll out services to everyone.

As African Heads of State meet to celebrate the achievements of independence and forge plans for the next 50 years, it is now time for them to be practical. Investing in civil and vital registration systems to make sure that all of the continent’s citizens, especially the very youngest, are counted right from the start is a critical first step.

*Martin Mogwanja became U.N. Children’s Fund (UNICEF) deputy executive director in 2011. He has worked all over the world for UNICEF including serving as Representative in Pakistan, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and also as deputy regional director for West and Central Africa in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

**Carlos Lopes of Guinea-Bissau is the executive secretary of the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa. He has more than 24 years experience at the U.N. as U.N. Development Programme resident coordinator and resident representative in Brazil and Zimbabwe. A member of several African academic networks, as well as a strategist and socio-economist, Lopes has vast experience in capacity-building and technical cooperation on the continent.