The juvenile justice system currently offers “highly unsatisfactory” conditions under which young children are being detained and this is unacceptable, according to women and children’s advocate Karen DeSouza.
The issue of juveniles being treated as minor adults, particularly children under 13 years, has been a long running one and according to DeSouza, nothing has changed over the years. She said the current juvenile detention system is taking young boys and girls, “who are obviously in trouble and is acting in a way to further endanger them.”
Repeated calls have been sounded over the years for holding centres to house juveniles but to date there has been no real movement, De Souza said. She registered her outrage at the factthat such a facility is still being talked about in 2011.
“My position is that this holding centre should have been opened a long time ago because it is an absolute necessity…we have a multimillion dollar budget; let us use it and make provisions for our children,” DeSouza told Stabroek News in an interview on Friday.
When PNCR-1G MP Deborah Backer raised the issue of holding centres for juveniles during the consideration of the 2011 budget estimates Home Affairs Minister, Clement Rohee assured the House that a facility which has been built at Sophia “will open shortly.” However, the minister said that the provisions at Sophia will cater for children above 14 years of age.
Rohee’s disclosure that the Sophia Holding Centre will not house children under the age of 14 years stunned Backer who attempted to press the issue, but dropped her line of questioning when the minister said this responsibility falls under the Ministry of Human Services and Social Security.
But the reality is that young children in conflict with the law are currently being detained at stations across the country, and are locked up in cells that human rights advocates have deemed unsuitable for adults.
Stabroek News spoke with a mother who recently approached the Guyana Human Rights Association (GHRA) after her 14-year-old daughter was locked-up at the East La Penitence police station for two nights following a larceny allegation. The woman, June Azore, said her daughter who is hearing and speech impaired was detained at the lock-ups which were “overcrowded and insanitary.”
The mother was also detained on allegations of receiving stolen items and according to her, the night she slept in the lock-ups with her daughter both were forced to sleep in a passageway due to the cells being crowded. She described the conditions at the station where women detainees are held as unfit for humans.
“My daughter has disabilities yet they lock her up there and we only got out after complaints were made at the Human Services Ministry… I also went to the Police Complaints Authority and the Guyana Human Rights because my daughter’s rights were violated, my rights was violated,” Azore said. She is an amputee, who is currently wearing a prosthetic leg.
Recently, an 11-year-old girl who was detained at the Beterverwagting police station for wandering has alleged that she was raped while in custody, and an investigation has since been launched.
Inhumane conditions
DeSouza, in her comments to this newspaper, condemned the conditions under which women are held at East La Penitence saying she has been calling for changes there for years. She said the conditions are inhumane, noting that the facilities set up to house young children at police stations across the country appear to be no different.
But she also raised the issue of young children being detained for matters like “wandering,” saying that the system should not be criminalizing children for an offence of that nature. “We need to be looking into the reasons why they are wandering and address that, not bring [them] into custody at facilities unfit for even adults,” she added.
The Juvenile Offenders Amendment Act, passed three years ago, makes provisions for holding centres for juveniles. Section 20 (a) of the act says that the [subject] Minister – the Minister of Home Affairs – may establish and maintain as many centres as may be necessary as the Holding Centres for Juveniles for the reception, care and custody of children and young persons under the orders of the court or for any other appropriate reasons as the Minister may determine.
Previously, juveniles were held separately from adults at what was then termed “places of detention” set up at Eve Leary and also at an EastCoast Demerara village. But those provisions ended some time ago and female juvenile offenders are currently detained at East La Penitence police station and male offenders at the East Ruimveldt outpost.
‘Something is wrong’
Parliamentarian and attorney, Deborah Backer told Stabroek News the issue is one which is crying out for attention. She said that something is wrong when there is no facility in which to house young children, particularly girls who come into conflict with the law.
Backer observed that the number of juvenile offenders is increasing “somewhat” and according to her there is an urgent need for a proper facility. She said government needs to reconsider the provisions at the Sophia Centre, adding that it ought to accommodate children under age 14 years. “Where are we going to put them, these young girls who are under 14 if Sophia is not making provisions for them… look at the little girl at the BV police station,” she said.
Backer stressed that Guyana is a signatory to many international conventions which fiercely protect the rights of children and that what currently obtains with respect to juveniles is not in keeping with their rights.
She also touched on the question of whether magistrates are aware that they are remanding children to adult prison-like conditions due to the lack of a facility; though she mentioned that young boys are housed separately at the East Ruimveldt police station.
Further, Co-President of GHRA, Mike McCormack told Stabroek News that the situation of juveniles being treated as minor adults by the system is more widespread than people realize and “what gets into the papers.”
“This is an issue that really needs a lot of attention,” he said, while noting that children in conflict with the law should be treated as victims and not as perpetrators. His position has always been that the system needs to move away from the punitive arrangements that are currently in place for juveniles.
