PESHAWAR: Children's conviction under FCR condemned
By Bureau Report
PESHAWAR, Nov 19: An NGO has expressed concern over continuing detention and conviction of children under the collective responsibility clause of the Frontier Crimes Regulation and has urged the government to release them immediately.
The deputy national coordinator of the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child, Arshad Mahmood, expressed "deep disappointment" over convictions and sentencing of children as young as two years old and what hetermed the government's "cold response" to its appeals for the release of such children.
He was speaking at a press conference held on Friday to commemorate the Universal Children's Day and International Day Against Child Abuse. He said that there were around 70 children in different prisons of the NWFP who were arrested under the FCR.
"Unfortunately more than 15 of them, including girls, are under 10 years of age. They are in prison for crimes that have allegedly been committed by their fathers or another member of their respective families," he said.
He said that four children - Tahir Khan, 8, Iran Khan, 7, Khalil Mohammad, 3, and Zarmina, only two years old - had been sentenced to serve three years in prison. He said that they were languishing in the Central Prison, Haripur, along with their siblings, mothers and other extended family members, including some as young as six months old.
He criticized the non-implementation of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000 on tribal areas and said that it should be extended to the Federally-Administered Tribal Areas.
Condemning the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR), he said that the out-dated law gave the local administration and political agents in tribal areas wide discretionary powers.
Stressing the need for abolishing the FCR, he said that successive governments had not touched the subject because of their vested interests. Authorities could detain members of a fugitive's immediate family or tribe under the FCR's collective responsibility clause.
They can even go as far as blockading the fugitive's village pending his surrender or punishment by his own tribe. He said that law-enforcement agencies tended to target innocent civilians after they fail to perform their duties to "bargain" with outlaws.
"What is the difference between an outlaw kidnapping innocent people for ransom and law-enforcement agencies 'kidnapping' and detaining innocent women and children for their release," he said.
He urged the federal government to take all necessary measurers to release all children imprisoned under the FCR, including those who have turned above 18 years of age inside prisons.
