Detained children complain of abuses, rights violations

BY GADIOSA LAMTEY

The Commission for Human Rights and Good Governance yesterday released its report on the state of children in detention, in which 31 per cent complained of rights violations, harassment, abuse and degrading treatment.

The report compiled in 14 regions in February this year, cited a number of challenges facing children in detention in various prisons and cells countrywide.

“Children are not separated from adults in police stations and conditions are generally poor,” said the Director of Research and Documentation in the Commission Epiphania Mfundo, at the official launching of the report in Dar es Salaam.

According to the official, 59 percent of the children interviewed said they were fairly treated while 31 percent said were beaten, tortured and denied food and water during detention.

In some police stations, children held in cells with adults were kept in offices or corridors and shared toilets with adults and were exposed to poor sanitation facilities. Girls “are not provided with clean materials.”

Interviewed children complained that they did not know the offences for which they had been arrested or charged with and their rights whilst being arrested by police officers.

She said the commission urged police to ensure that allegations of torture and inhuman treatment by officers against children are dealt with accordingly.

The force needed to establish transparent and accessible mechanisms for handling the complaints, she suggested.

It is imperative for the police to cooperate with professionals who provided legal assistance to children, added the official.

The commission called upon the government of Tanzania to ratify the optional protocol to the convention against torture in order to ensure future monitoring of the situation of children in detention.

“Our work will end in recommendations to the government and other institutions that deal with detained children and those in prison to improve their situations,” she said.

It would also raise awareness among judiciary officials to end the pre-trail detention of under-18 year old children in adult prisons in the areas where retention homes are operating.

The Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), Eliezer Feleshi who officiated at the launch, said his office will work on the recommendations outlined in the report.

However, Feleshi asked magistrates to revisit the law in order to protect the rights of detained children.

Meanwhile, the Representative from the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF), Dorothy Rozga said children should not be placed in detention when they come into conflict with the law simply because they have no families to care for them.

She said alternatives must be in place to rehabilitate children in their communities to ensure that as few children as possible have to be imprisoned and detention must be for as short a time as possible.


(2011-8-3/ippmedia)