Concerned about the growing number of children languishing in the country's prisons, the Bangladesh High Court asked the government to immediately transfer over 1,200 juveniles to correction centers. The High Court was acting on a petition filed by the Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST), a legal-aid group. The verdict, which came after a three-month legal wrangle, was unanimous. Judges Amirul Chowdhury and Nizamul Haq Nasim ordered the government to withdraw all criminal charges against children below 12 years. The judges said if the charges against these children could not be repealed, they should be granted bail immediately. In cases where the charges could not be withdrawn or where the children could not be released on bail, the court directed the jail authorities to separate them from adults immediately. The court's directive to shift all juvenile prisoners to correction centers was long awaited. Children in Bangladesh's jails are highly vulnerable to diseases because of overcrowding, lack of ventilation and poor quality of food. The situation is worsened by inadequate medical facilities. As the children are lodged with adult prisoners, they become victims of various kinds of harassment, including sexual. Jails also have no arrangement for children's recreation, said BLAST deputy director Farida Yasmin. The court also asked the principal secretary to the prime minister, Dr Kamal Uddin Siddiqui, who is also the chief of the Juvenile Justice Monitoring Cell, to study the provisions laid down by the High Court to uphold the rights of the child. The judges asked for representatives of nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) working with disadvantaged children and human rights groups to be included in the monitoring cell. Earlier, during deliberations, the court had asked the Inspector General of Prisons to submit a report after investigating the condition of children in jails. Ironically, Bangladesh happens to be one of the first signatories to the Convention for the Rights of the Child (CRC). As a premier daily stated, " It could be possible the authorities might have forgotten that according to the Children's Act, 1974, those under the age of 16 cannot be sent to jail." The Act also holds that such cases should be tried only in juvenile courts, a norm, which activists say, is hardly adhered to. Rights lawyer Dr Shahdeen Malik was alarmed by a newspaper report that appeared a couple of months ago, depicting the appalling state of juvenile justice, and violence against children in Bangladesh. The study "Our Children in Jail" was presented by Odhikar, a rights organization, in collaboration with Save the Children, UK. According to the report, more than a thousand children aged below 18 were languishing in 65 jails across the country last year. That number has since increased to 1,200 in 65 jails, said Inspector General of Prisons Brigadier-General Zillur Rahman. The report said children accused of crimes were lodged with criminals and prisoners who were awaiting trial. Also deplorable was the situation of young children living with their mothers alongside female inmates. The study mentioned that the police were unaware of the rights of children and sometimes sent them to jail after declaring they were over 18 years old. While it could not be ascertained whether the police deliberately described the minors as adults or if they failed to determine their age by appearance, clearly they did not spare the children from torture in custody. Most of the children were arrested under draconian laws such as the Special Powers Act of 1974, the Narcotics Control Act and so on. Another law that was misused to book children was the notorious Section 54 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) which allowed the police to detain any person on mere suspicion. The report said that till they attained the age of 18, children need to be protected from such harsh laws. Moreover, there was a need to fix an age limit below which children could not booked for serious crimes like murder, anti-state activities, explosives-related cases and so on. Often, children got on the wrong side of the law because they were misled. Director of Odhikar, Masood Alam Ragib Ahsan, said that children were recruited to indulge in violence engineered by political parties during strikes and other forms of street protest. Justice K.M. Hasan of the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court noted that despite the juvenile correction centers and shelters established by the government, the success rate of rehabilitating accused children was poor. "Maybe these correction centers are over-simplified," he observed. He suggested establishment of special or designated courts under the charge of judges and personnel trained in the provisions of the CRC and conversant with the provisions of the Children's Act, 1974. Attorney General A.F. Hasan Arif stressed the need for reforming the Children's Act and setting up more correction centers. Though the High Court's directive is a major respite for children lodged in jails, the country's two correction centers are also in a deplorable condition. But things might improve. Save the Children, UK, is providing technical assistance to improve the skills of children in correction centers. Social worker Shamsun Nahar stressed that the centers should not be dubbed 'remand homes.' The director of the Bangladesh Shishu Adhikar Forum (BSAF), an apex body of NGOs working with disadvantaged children, Mohammad Asghar Ali, the rise in juvenile crime and deteriorating juvenile justice is directly linked to a demoralized social fabric. He said an alarming number of children were joining the "unrecognized society" that had mushroomed on city streets. Thousands of disadvantaged children in Bangladesh, mostly runaways and single-parent children have turned outlaws. The number of full-time child criminals who make a living by mugging or drug- peddling has risen more than three-fold since 1990, observed a research study released by BSAF and another rights group. This dramatic increase in the juvenile crime rate corresponded with the growing problem of street children in one of the world's poorest countries. According to the study, compared with 6,000 in 1990, currently some 20,000 Bangladeshi children are full-time criminals, Most of the child outlaws, aged between eight and 16, begin their career under the patronage of hardened criminals and develop serious drug problems, the study said. It observed that 90 percent of child criminals work as porters, or in small shops and restaurants as a cover for their criminal life. [Source: One World South Asia]