大象传媒

While all but two countries have signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, tens of thousands of children are imprisoned every day - often without committing any crime. Vera Frankl and Rebecca Hodson report.

Every day, tens of thousands of children around the world wake up behind bars. Many will have committed no offence. The harsh and often inhuman punishment meted out to children in detention around the globe is an international scandal, as 大象传媒 reporters discovered during their investigations for the series Call That Justice.

Almost every country in the world has committed itself to respecting the human rights of children. But, in reality, the signatures on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child aren't worth the paper they are written on.

Countries in both the developed and developing world are guilty of child abuse on a massive scale - not once in a while, but on a daily basis. Every day, tens of thousands of children are rounded up and put behind bars.


For many, that spells the beginning of months and sometimes years of suffering. Often denied legal representation or contact with parents, forced to share cells with hardened adult criminals, lacking adequate food and sanitary facilities, sometimes kept in solitary confinement - these are the children the world forgot.

Once inside, they become invisible, which makes them easy prey for the very people charged with their safety: police and prison wardens. In many places, violence, sexual abuse and even torture of juveniles is commonplace.

In Pakistan, legislation has been introduced in the past few years to try to improve matters for children who find themselves in conflict with the law. But, in practice, for many children, not much has changed. They are still denied due process, detained under often appalling conditions, and physically and sexually abused. Some die in custody.

The more vulnerable you are, the less likely you are to get access to justice. Children have no voice so nobody cares Hina Jilani, human rights lawyer

Children as young as seven in Pakistan can be charged with committing a crime. Lawyer Hina Jilani, who has years of experience of such cases, told us: "The more vulnerable you are, the less likely you are to get access to justice. Children have no voice, so nobody cares."

In Kenya, reporter Fiona Ledger found that a growing number of children from poor and dysfunctional families end up drifting into the city, sleeping rough, sniffing glue and stealing to survive. "These street children get picked up by police and city authorities and then swallowed up by the justice system," she explained. "They have to go to court even if they haven't been charged with any crime, and they face long spells in remand homes unless an adult pays their bail or takes them home."

In the USA - one of only two countries that has not ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child - the juvenile justice system has taken significant steps backwards over the past few decades. A public outcry against teenage violence during the 1980s and 1990s put pressure on politicians across the country to be increasingly tough on crime. Forty states have adopted legislation that allows juveniles to be tried as adults, and encourages ever harsher regimes.

Mary Ellen Johnson is Executive Director of the Pendulum Foundation, which campaigns on juvenile justice issues. She says the US holds more than 90% of all the young people in the world serving such sentences. "Here in Colorado, we have more than half of our kids who are serving very long sentences," she said. "They're locked up 23 hours a day. Any time they're let out of their cells to take a shower, they're shackled and handcuffed. What we're doing in those prisons is torture, pure and simple."


Vera Frankl is a radio producer and reporter, specialising in documentaries. She and Rebecca Hodson have worked together many times for 大象传媒 World Service.