ISLAMABAD, May 5: More than 4,400 juveniles are languishing in 82 prisons of the country for the past many years as the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), promulgated in July 2000, has not provided the much-promised relief to them.

“The State of Pakistan’s Children Report 2001” released by an NGO, working for child rights, said more than 3,750 were under- trial prisoners out of the total number of some 4,400 juvenile prisoners in the country.

The report observes that promulgation of the JJSO has not ameliorated the plight of the juvenile prisoners.

“Unfortunately, not much has changed since then despite repeated attempts by SPARC to get the ordinance’s rules enacted.”

According to the report, the state of the juvenile prisoners during the year remained dismal and not much transpired except for a few token releases from some prisons. The ordinance, despite being enacted almost 18 months ago, remained to be enforced in letter and spirit and its rules had not been officially notified in any of the provinces or the Islamabad Capital Territory, the report added.

The Punjab government notified that the courts of the senior civil judges would act as juvenile courts for the province with effect from April 28, 2001, it said.

However, the report noted ironically: “In a media consultation organized by SPARC on January 16, 2002, the then Punjab law minister announced that he was coming to the meeting after signing the JJSO Rules for the Punjab province; he even showed the signed copy of the notification. Now we all await that notification to become public while the provincial minister has been elevated to a federal position.”

Giving a break up of the juvenile prisoners in the provincial prisons, the report said, as of March 20, 2002 there were a total of 853 juvenile prisoners in the NWFP. Out of these, some 271 were kept with children in the juvenile sections of the jails despite the fact that they belonged to the 18-21 age group.

Some 107 Afghan and 746 Pakistani juvenile prisoners were lodged in 21 jails of the NWFP till March 20, the report said.

About Punjab, it added, 3,028 juvenile prisoners, including eight girls, were behind bars at 29 jails of the province.

These included 446 convicted, 2,515 under-trial and 67 juvenile prisoners on death row.

In Sindh, the report said, 533 juvenile prisoners were behind bars in the 16 prisons of the province. Only 31 juvenile prisoners had been convicted while the remaining 502 were under- trial till March 2002.

It said Sindh remained the country’s only province where child prisoners were still being kept with adults in most parts of the interior. The only exception is the prison in Karachi which is considered a model for juvenile prisoners by the whole country, it added. For Balochistan, the report said, the NGO could not obtain the latest information.

The estimated number of the juvenile prisoners is said to be 55, it said.