PESHAWAR, Aug 3: With 2,173 offenders on probation across the NWFP, the probation and reclamation department lacks basic facilities to perform its day to day functions. Under the rules, a woman offender could only be given in the supervision of a woman probation officer, but 22 women offenders are been looked after by male officers.

In a one-day consultation organized by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC) with juvenile offenders released on probation under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, the deputy director of probation and reclamation department, Muaalim Jan, said that about 158 juveniles were released on probation by trial courts and they had been under their supervision.

He pointed out that only 13 probation officers were working across the province. “In some of the districts including Karak, Hangu, Dir, Malakand, Buner, Shangla and Tank, we have no probation officer and the officers from other districts have to look after cases there,” he said.

Mr Jan said that the officers had no facilities including conveyance and telephone and there was no sitting arrangement in the offices concerned for the probationers when they appear there.

He suggested that there should be separate probation officers for juvenile offenders in every district. The consultation included about 20 male and two female juvenile offenders who were released on probation after their conviction.

Almost all of them shared the same views regarding their life in probation, stating that releasing them on probation was great favour extended to them as in prisons they could not become better human beings.

Some of them recalled how traumatized they were in prisons as they were treated harshly and often beaten. It was observed that none of the juvenile probationers had been acquiring education and most of them were engaged in labour.

Mr Jan said that he had directed all the probation officers to enrol juvenile probationers in the ‘literacy for all’ programme. Two female probationers, who happened to be sisters and were released on probation for a period of four years and six months, said that though they had not been facing any problem from the male probation officer, it would have been much better that a female officer was appointed for their supervision.

Both of them claimed that they were severely beaten by the women police after their arrest as they were forcing them to confess smuggling of narcotics about which they had no knowledge.

“Out of 25 juvenile probationers, 22 male and three females of the Peshawar district, only one probationer has repeated a crime, the rest either completed their probation successfully or are still in touch with the probation officer,” said Peshawar probation officer Yousaf Khalil.

SPARC provincial coordinator Jehanzeb Khan said that the detention of children should be as a last resort. He said that were campaigning for increasing the number of probation officers and providing them facilities so that the department could function effectively.

He said that great responsibility lies on the media for creating awareness among the people, especially the judicial and police officers.