June 17, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 20, 1427

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PESHAWAR, June 16: Participants at a consultative workshop have called upon the government to appoint male probation officers at the district level and women probation officers at the divisional level to help juvenile offenders in the province. The workshop, organised by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (Sparc) on Friday, was attended by government officials and members of human rights and civil society organisations.

Sparc’s senior programme officer, Jahanzeb Khan, said that there were 392 juveniles in jails of the province of whom 99 were convicted and 293 were under-trial. Of 346 female prisoners, 125 were convicted and the rest were under-trial.

“Seventy per cent of them could be released on probation under the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance 2000,” Mr Khan said, adding that the NWFP had 13 male POs in 13 districts, while the number of female POs in the province stood at zero.

He said that about 90 per cent of the juvenile offenders were innocent, because they had been lured by someone to commit crimes. He said juvenile prisoners were being kept with hardened and professional criminals in jails that further deteriorated their condition. He said juvenile prisoners also needed borstal institutions where they could stay separately and be given education and training.

“Jails are universities of crime and females and juveniles who have been imprisoned for less serious crimes should be released on probation,” said Mr Khan, adding that under the Probation Ordinance 1961 females committing offence for first time should be given a chance to reform themselves. He said females could be released on probation only under the observation of a female PO because male POs were so overburdened that it was humanly impossible for them to perform their duties in respect of women prisoners.

Speaking on the occasion a probation officer said she did not even have a telephone in her one-room office so he could not keep himself well informed about all the probationers. He suggested that there should be at least one female PO in each district.

NWFP’s Deputy Director Probation and Reclamation Maulim Jan said the government should include probation system in the Justice to Access programme. At present, a total of 1810 women and juvenile offenders were on probation in the province, he said, adding that with the appointment of POs in all districts, burden on jails could be reduced.