Valley has only one juvenile remand home for youth detained for violence

Scores of Kashmiri youth were detained for violence – but Valley has only one juvenile remand home

by Rayan Naqash

Published: 17 Nov 2016, Scroll.in

[Source: http://scroll.in/article/820727/juvenile-justice-in-kashmir-beatings-in-lock-up-bribes-and-detention-with-adults]

The state's failure to implement laws for minors may have endangered an unknown number of youth who were detained during the summer unrest.

On a chilly October evening, a crowd in Srinagar banged on the gates of a police station, demanding the release of a teenager who had been detained for attacking vehicles. Policemen came to the gate, batons in hand. As the boy’s angry relatives heckled an officer, the policemen dealt them a few blows before pushing them away. Curses were exchanged as the crowd finally dispersed.

An elderly woman, the grandmother of another detainee, sat on a shopfront opposite the police station. She pleaded for her grandson to be released, claiming he was only 11 years old and had been abandoned by his mother after his policeman-father had died in an encounter.

Inside the police station, officials said parents lying about the age of their children was common practice. The detained boy, they said, was at least 16, and not 11, because his father had died in 2001.

The two boys are among the scores of young Kashmiris, many in their teens and pre-teens, who took to the streets during the protests that raged across Kashmir after the popular Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani was killed by security forces on July 8.

Minors in lock-up

Close to four months on, with the protests having ebbed, attention has turned to the arrests made during that period of turbulence. On October 7, newspaper reports in Kashmir, quoting Special Director General of Police, Coordination and Law and Order, SP Vaid, said that 4,318 people had been arrested, 925 of whom were still in custody. Since then, according to unofficial estimates, the number of detainees has risen to 6,500, of whom between 1,000 to 1,500 are estimated to still be in custody.

An unknown number of juveniles – who are 18 years or younger – are among the arrested and do not figure in the official records. Several of them have been bailed out or sent to juvenile homes. At least two minors were reported to have been arrested under the Public Safety Act by showing them to be adults. This law, under which a person can be detained for up to two years without judicial intervention, was amended in 2012 to bar the detention of minors.

According to advocate Wajid Haseeb, executive magistrates who sanction warrants under the Public Safety Act rely on police dossiers and do not conduct an independent investigation to ascertain whether the accused is a minor. “If the police think no one will produce on records a birth certificate, they mention the age as 18,” he said. “We then plead in the High Court if we have a document [proof of date of birth] and the warrant will be quashed.”

The manner and conditions of incarceration are now a matter of debate. A police official in Srinagar said the usual practice is to send minors – below 16, according to him – to juvenile homes or keep them separated from adults while still in lock-up.

First-time offenders, the official said, are let off with a scolding, after their families give the police a written undertaking that their wards will not indulge in stone-pelting again. “The parents and imams from neighbourhood mosques are called to the police station and asked to reprimand the boy,” he said. But repeat offenders are booked.

However, lawyer Mir Shafkat Hussain rejected this claim. He alleged that juvenile detainees are kept in police lock-ups with adults before being produced in court “on the whim of the police”. He added, “Every parent says their child was detained for 20-25 days before being taken to a court.”

In Srinagar’s lower court, minors mature into adults while following up on their long-drawn-out cases, which range from stone-pelting to mob violence and arson.

Hussain, who has helped many protestors seek bail, said a majority of those detained for stone-pelting were minors, who were often harassed in lock-up. Many detainees were also first-time offenders, he added.

Overcrowded facilities

Reports of families of detainees being charged for food surface each time arrests are made on a large scale. This summer was no different.

The lawyer Wajid Haseeb said the state covers the cost of only those detentions that are in the books. “This is why they charge money from parents for meals,” he said. “Nobody is going to pay if the detainee is not in any record.”

Special Director General of Police SP Vaid acknowledged the reports of families of detainees being charged, but said funds had been released to all senior superintendents to pay police station bills. “Where I get proof [that relatives are being charged money], I will come down very heavily on the police stations and station house officers,” he said.

While scores of minor offenders were detained in the past few months, there is only one juvenile observation home in the entire Valley – a facility with a maximum capacity of 50 at Harwan in Srinagar. Officials of the social welfare department, however, said the number was not static and there had been several occasions when the home had been overcrowded.

Tariq Ahmad, Srinagar district officer for social welfare, said there had been a steady stream of juveniles to the observation home during the early days of the unrest. “But in recent weeks, the numbers have gone down and now, only about five boys accused of stone-pelting remain,” he added.

In 2013, the state passed the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act. It also agreed to implement the Centre’s Integrated Child Protection Scheme. But it failed to do so fully, leading to the lack of infrastructure to deal with juvenile crime. Lawyers and activists said this was harming minors as they are now detained with adults.

A lawyer, who did not want to be identified, said most juvenile detainees came from poor households with little education and no political awareness. “Once you slap PSA [Public Safety Act] on a juvenile, he cannot go for education or jobs,” he said. “So he does this [stone-pelting]. What else can he do?”

Lack of training

Rouf Malik, who heads the child rights group Koshish, linked the magnitude of protests this summer with the practice of detaining juveniles with adults, saying it affected behaviour patterns and enhanced tendencies among such minors to commit crimes. “They come out as reactionaries,” he said.

A 2011 study by the Delhi-based Asian Centre for Human Rights, Juveniles of Jammu and Kashmir: Unequal before the law and denied justice in custody, found that minors in the state are “assumed to be adults and are detained in adult detention facilities, placing them at very high risk of abuse”. It went on to say that “the lack of juvenile facilities, such as juvenile homes, means that detained delinquents are routinely detained in police lock-ups or in prisons with adults”.

Special Director General of Police Vaid said that juveniles must be kept in juvenile homes, and that the police execute the law once it has been implemented by the government. “We are trying our best to make policemen aware but they need special training and sensitisation to juvenile problems,” he said. “I don’t think my policemen are so sensitised.”

According to Abdul Majeed Bhat, mission director of the Integrated Child Protection Scheme, the biggest problem in the state is the lack of a Juvenile Justice Board, nominations for which have only just been finalised. Unless the board and Child Welfare Committees are formed, “implementation [of the scheme] is not practical”, he added.

Pointing out that Central schemes were exhaustive and made malpractice difficult, Malik said their non-implementation in the state was disappointing. “Security laws come directly [to Kashmir] but welfare acts such as these are not directly imposed and implemented,” he added.

The Warriors of Dispair - by Debu C

Child Soldiers of Kashmir: The Warriors of Dispair
October 22, 2016
by Debu C

Source: https://www.mapsofindia.com/my-india/government/children-of-kashmir-the-new-triggers-against-the-state



The advantage with children is that they can be moulded in any way as the family or society would like them to be. This can be both a virtue and a curse. The latter, when the family and state together fail the child and that is the first foundation of a failed society, and ultimately, the nation.

Kashmir has witnessed militancy since 1948 in one form or another. What used to be the odd stone pelting at military vehicles passing by once in a while, has now turned into full-fledged armed militancy against the state authority. However, that is neither new nor the biggest challenge for the state and central government. It is the recent phenomenon over the last 100 days of state-wide militant protests, led by stone-pelting children, some as young as 8 and 10 years, that is truly disturbing.

From 2000 onwards, it seemed that the state was limping back towards a semblance of normalcy; led by relatively free and fair elections, increased infrastructure developments like the Baramulla-Banihal rail link, which had been welcomed by local people, and for a while it did seem that Kashmir valley was making slow but steady progress towards order and development.

The lost cause of Burhan Wani

The last 100 days has changed all of that. The trigger to the current spree of stone pelting and violence was the killing of Kashmir-based self-styled Commander of Hizbul Mujahideen, Burhan Wani, by security forces. The separatists saw an opportunity to come back onto the centre stage of Kashmiri attention, stoked state-wide protests and for the first time, children, some as young as 8 years, were used as a shield and fronted the stone pelters.

In another first, women took on the security personnel in challenging them knowing fully well that they would not respond aggressively.

So, how did the Kashmiri society change its values so drastically that it now seems indifferent to children being put on the frontline, before a well-armed and well-trained military force?

Children are dying and children are being scarred for life, but have all stakeholders given a serious thought on the impact of this new development on Kashmiri society in coming times?

Looking into the mind of a militant child

In several conflicts, children have been used and abused in armed warfare across the world by vested interests, who find them easy to influence and willing to act as ‘sacrificial goats’.

Children have been used actively in brutal sectarian warfare in several parts of Africa. They are easy to recruit as most are recent orphans of war or have been separated from their families. Arming them with a promise to avenge the injustice against their parents or relatives is very alluring to an innocent child, who is deeply traumatized, confused and in emotional conflict. Hand him a weapon and he becomes a mobile ticking bomb for his controller.

Besides being coerced into brutal militancy, sexual exploitation by adults only hardens them and they grow up into being even more brutal versions than their handlers. Power at a very young age is as intoxicating as it is to an adult, only that now we have a child dying for a cause that he barely understands.

But if you do survive, then more power and brutality are the rewards. Children initiated into militancy at a very young age learn quickly the way into a brutal world, but no one ever learns the way out of it, unless it happens in a coffin. Burhan Wani learnt that the hard way. But he was at least a young man. What about these young and vulnerable children of Kashmir?

How Kashmir is going South

Kashmir is not quite there yet but make no mistake, the early signs in the making of a suicidal Jihadi is emerging. It all starts with young ‘boys’ playing out for long hours, unsupervised by their parents. With no school to attend, older boys, who mostly happen to be only a year or two older, start the initiation process.

This is further backed by fanatics at the local mosque who validate the older boys’ actions. Soon a chain of command begins to fall in place with initially innocuous tasks such as conducting surveillance of security forces, passing information on their movements, etc., which are rewarded with petty cash and food. Each child is made to feel like a ‘hero’ and soon each level begins to look up to the older level and try and emulate them. And in the process, a childhood gets lost forever.

In Kashmir, not all children who are part of the stone-pelting brigade are organized or even controlled. Many have formed themselves into petty gangs extorting money from locals to feed their own addictions and sense of power. In many cases, what is a simple case of spoilt unsupervised brats acting in a group, soon becomes the target for recruitment by ‘talent spotters’ of various militant groups.

These children are shown propaganda videos that show the power of the gun and the rewards that come with it. ‘Azadi’ is the central theme sold to naïve children who have no clue or idea about mainland India or even the concept of India. They are made to parrot Azadi as their main goal in life; consequences notwithstanding.

But this was never a problem for the self-centered separatists, most of whom have sent their own children to safe havens in metro cities of India or overseas, while they continue to prey on unsuspecting children from weaker sections, as they play out their hidden agenda against the state authorities.

Is there any hope for militant children of Kashmir?

There is. But it will take all stakeholders to commit themselves to the betterment of children. At the moment, there seems very little chance of state authorities, security forces, families of militant children, community leaders and school teachers to come together and discuss the future of these children, away from the influence of parochial politics.

The conflict in Ireland saw children being used by militants to gather information and act as bait to draw British security forces. Though not as brutal as what we see in parts of Africa and now the Middle-East, nevertheless, what seemed impossible sometime back is now a fairly peaceful region; where children pursue what they should be at their age, knowledge and play.

Kashmiri society was never violent, it’s not in their DNA and that should give us hope for a truly inclusive and serious discussion initiated by the authorities, which will surely get a sober response from all stakeholders. A beginning has to be made and it must be made now.

It’s time to once again listen to John Lennon’s song: “All we are saying, is give peace a chance.”

"THE STONE AGE, THE STONED AGE, AND THE AGE OF STONING" - A poem

THE STONE AGE,
THE STONED AGE,
AND THE AGE OF STONING

by Yavar Khan Qadri

The three Ages of Stone

Seven thousand for one

A dozen years for two

Then the first two Ages were done.

The first Age came early

Man, primitive, with flaws

An early Early Man

Under the fear of claws.

So he made better weapons

Improved over bone

Gone was the “primitive”

Man, deftly carving stone.

The Stoned Age came much later

Amidst the first foolish wars

The marijuana & mushroom joints

The roar of the muscle cars.

The Stoning Age is here now

More poignant than others

It's the Age of flinging Stones

In Kashmir, sisters and brothers.

Not that protests are not justified

With all the brute force let loose

It's just that the logic is confusing

By the primitive methods we choose.

Useless the pen's might

Wisdom in its last throes

Submission, demand the leaders

And the miserable Kashmiri bows.

Death, fear, and depravity

Caused by the leaders' behaviours

Are they the biggest crooks?

Nay; they are the 'saviours'!

With astronomical demands

The leaders are many

Their own children safe

They haven't sacrificed any.

That's okay, I suppose

The leaders are exempt

Stone pelting is for the masses

The classes? Only to tempt.

Have we ceased to be human?

Have we declined to think?

Closing our eyes to reality

Never did once we blink.

Some say follow the one

Who does not change his stand

We do have the Devil

Then do we shake his hand.

Admitting these facts is a 'sin'

The cowards can hurt you fast

But once Kashmiris have risen

Their threats won't really last.

So throw onto them

What they throw onto you.

Go on your marches

But invite them too.

Then be amazed by the way

The rhetoric will vanish

The marches and the pelting

They themselves will banish.

Or do nothing

Just suffer and wait

Until they lure you

With yet another bait.

The fact is that kids are kids

Not instruments of war

They need a future

Not a dream that's too far.

Anyone who coerces a child to fight

Deserves to be kicked out from society, outright.

© Yavar Khan Qadri, 25 Sep 2016

"Kashmir’s Child Soldiers" by Shakir Mir

[An excerpt from Shakir Mir's article: "It’s Time to Bring Kashmir’s ‘Miserable Guillotine’ Out from the Shadows", The Wire, 26 Sep 2016]

On Teachers Day, two weeks ago, Javaid Trali, a friend and affiliate of the ruling party, jocularly took to his Facebook, writing, “#HappyTeachersDay to @sageelani, @MirwaizKashmir & Co from children on streets for teaching them how stone age looks like, practically.”

Trali opened a can of worms. His comment was not off the mark, but given the truth that it was under the government’s orders that the police fired pellet guns, it was a morally tenuous line to simply exculpate the authorities while alleging that separatists were solely to blame. He received an angry comment from a person who wrote, “And thanks to you and your government teaching kids what darkness looks like because they’re blinded by you.”

There were also others who wrote as much. I could not disagree with their point of view. Their words were profound and truthful. But when they tried casting all pellet-hit children as mere passive victims of the “offensive raged by the Indian state”, it became problematic.

The other day, I happened to walk past a famous crossroad in the old city. I saw a troop of children not more than 7, hurling stones and shouting pro-Pakistan slogans at policemen. The cops were merely lounging against the balustrade, grinning in their dismissal of the little, harmless protesters. Their task was something else – to not let the real assailants assemble. A little while later, a group of older boys joined the kids, seething with fury and in no mood to play around. Anticipating a threat, it was then that the police snapped out of their reverie and prepped their anti-riot regalia. I left the scene. I don’t know what happened later. The same evening, I came across a Facebook video in which children pumped their fists in the air, wielding ‘guns’ and sloganeering while marching past a police station near the Shaheed Gunj area of Srinagar, barely two miles away from the secretariat.

I marveled at how callous the enablers of violence can be in letting those children push closer to the vortex of death. Granted that cops fighting protests are just angry bulls let loose, but where is the word of caution? Why is it we feel sorry for children only after they turn into a lifeless mass of pockmarked bodies? Why not do something to stem this possibility beforehand? I have never come across a single instance where separatist leaders issued counsel, dissuading children from joining violent mobs. Had they done so, the children would have been alright today. And reading and studying. And preparing for exams. There was always plenty of room to get our act together and preclude the possibility of children falling prey to the security forces. Unless someone, somewhere calculated that dead children, bloodied children, wounded and disfigured children are a potent way of transmitting a political message.

The last person to try sounding a word of caution, Maulvi Showkat Ahmad Shah, found himself blown up by an IED in 2011. Geelani tried to describe this as the Indian army’s doing but was forced to eat humble pie after a militant group owned up the “mistake.”

- Shakir Mir, journalist

Death of a boy from Harwan: Who is responsible?

by Rajesh Razdan

Nasir Shafi Qazi of New Theed Harwan

Today I read about the death of Nasir Shafi in Harwan area of Srinagar. Nasir was 11 years old. Do you have a 11 year old in your life ? Think about it for a minute.

Nasir’s dead body was found in bushes by the Harwan gardens. His family says he was killed in cold blood by either Police or CRPF. Police says he was a known “stone pelter” with 5 FIRs against his name. The young boy’s family refused to hand over his body for post mortem and he was buried amid speculations.

One thing is clear though. Nasir was not the lone child out there on the streets pelting stones and fighting security forces. There are hundreds like him. As part of Kashmir Files reportage, Barkha informed us about the phenomena of ‘toppers’ leaving home in droves towards highlands to embrace militancy. She also talked about younger faces in stone pelting groups this time around. 

But somehow the conversation stopped there without connecting the dots. You can bring up “political issue” all day long, but you know a society has reached a new level of moral depravity when interring child caskets becomes de rigueur.

Harwan used to to be the place you’d go to commune with the gods, but the gods have long been chased away.

This has happened before. In nineties African despots pushed children as young as eight into their dirty civil wars and the word ‘Child Soldiers’ entered the lexicon.

What we see today on the streets are the Child Soldiers of Kashmir.

In 2006 Thomas Lubango Dyilo, leader of Union of Congolese Patriots, was charged with three counts by ICC (International Criminal Court) related to military use of children in Congo. The charges were: 

• Enlisting children, constituting a war crime in violation of article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) of the Rome Statute;
• Conscription of children, constituting a war crime in violation of article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) of the Rome Statute;
• Using children to participate in hostilities, constituting a war crime in violation of article 8(2)(b)(xxvi) of the Rome Statute.

In 2012, Dyilo was convicted and sentenced to 14 years in prison.

Yet, our Dyilos’ remain free and are openly enlisting everyday. About time those who invoke UN day in and day out are frog-marched in front of ICC.


Note: The text is from a post on Facebook by Rajesh Razdan on 18 September 2016.

Video: A Child Being Indoctrinated Into Stone-pelting

"There can be no keener revelation of a society's soul than the way in which it treats its children." 

  — Nelson Mandela, Former President of South Africa

"Children must be taught how to think, not what to think." 

  — Margaret Mead, cultural anthropologist 

"Children are like wet cement; whatever falls on them makes an impression." 

  — Haim Ginott, child psychologist

"Children are great imitators. So give them something great to imitate." 

  — Anonymous

Child Soldiers in India (Wikipedia Article)

Child Soldiers in India
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_soldiers_in_India

According to Peter Singer the use of child soldiers in India is a common occurrence and that up to seventeen militant factions use child soldiers in the Kashmir region.[1]

Radha Kumar says that nations which have massive poverty and are heavily reliant on an agricultural economy will produce militants which are usually uneducated and that in a region where a conflict is protracted, the use of child soldiers becomes a common occurrence.[2]

According to a report from the Conflict Study Center, child soldiers are used in Assam, Manipur, Nagaland, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir; and that children were used by both the state and insurgents.[3]

Child soldiers also serve in the Indian armed forces.[4]

The use of child soldiers by the state and by non state actors is a violation of the Geneva convention and the Convention on the Rights of the Child[5]

References:

[1] Singer, Peter Warren (7 April 2006). Children at War. University of California Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-0520248762.

[2] Kumar, Radha (19 January 2012). Julian Lindley-French, Yves Boye, ed. The Oxford Handbook of War. Oxford University Press. p. 610. ISBN 978-0199562930.

[3] Marg, Rohini; Purano Baneswar (16 December 2009). Child Soldiers: Crime against Humanity (PDF). Conflict Study Center. p. 13.

[4] Aronowitz, Alexis A. (20 March 2009). Human Trafficking, Human Misery: The Global Trade in Human Beings. Praeger. p. 104. ISBN 978-0275994815.

[5] Whitman, Shelly (19 June 2012). W Andy Knight; Frazer Egerton, eds. The Routledge Handbook of the Responsibility to Protect. Routledge. pp. 152–153. ISBN 978-0415600750.

Peter Singer on Kashmiri Child Soldiers

See CHILDREN AT WAR (page 27) by Peter Warren Singer (Google Books)

Children at War
by Peter Warren Singer
http://www.ucpress.edu/book.php?isbn=9780520248762

Book Description:

From U.S. soldiers having to fight children in Afghanistan and Iraq to juvenile terrorists in Sri Lanka to Palestine, the new, younger face of battle is a terrible reality of 21st century warfare. Indeed, the very first American soldier killed by hostile fire in the “War on Terrorism” was shot by a fourteen-year-old Afghan boy. Children at War is the first comprehensive examination of a disturbing and escalating phenomenon: the use of children as soldiers around the globe. Interweaving explanatory narrative with the voices of child soldiers themselves, P.W. Singer, an internationally recognized expert in modern warfare, introduces the brutal reality of conflict, where children are sent off to fight in war-torn hotspots from Colombia and the Sudan to Kashmir and Sierra Leone. He explores the evolution of this phenomenon, how and why children are recruited, indoctrinated, trained, and converted to soldiers and then lays out the consequences for global security, with a special case study on terrorism. With this established, he lays out the responses that can end this horrible practice. What emerges is not only a compelling and clarifying read on the darker reality of modern warfare, but also a clear and urgent call for action.

According to Peter Singer the use of child soldiers in India is a common occurrence and that up to seventeen militant factions use child soldiers in the Kashmir region.

[Source: Child Soldiers in India, from Wikipedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_soldiers_in_India] 

Give children books and toys not guns says Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi

Give children books and toys not guns says Nobel Prize winner Kailash Satyarthi

Published: February 18, 2015
[Source: http://www.aworldatschool.org/news/entry/give-children-toys-not-guns-says-nobel-prize-winner-kailash-satyarthi-1602]

He was awarded his Nobel Peace Prize for helping to rescue more than 80,000 from lives of servitude. Now Kailash Satyarthi has called for an end to the hideous practice of recruiting child soldiers.

In a video message, the Indian founder of the children's rights movement Bachpan Bachao Andolan told how he met a boy soldier who was forced to kill friends and family members as part of his training.

Kailash added: “Almost 300,000 children in the world have been given guns in their hands instead of books and toys and, instead of taking and giving care for them, these children are misused as child soldiers."

He recorded his message to mark International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers on February 12. Kailash added: “We must protect them.  We must give them dreams. We must give them promising futures. We must give them opportunities and we must give them their childhood back.”

Inside Kashmir's Home For Juveniles

Inside Kashmir's Home For Juveniles
Javaid Trali
Srinagar, Publish Date: May 2 2016

[Source: http://www.greaterkashmir.com/news/kashmir/inside-kashmir-s-home-for-juveniles/216353.html]

The area beyond the razor wires is part of a touristic spot, usually thronged by picnickers to the nearby famed Mughal gardens of Harwan, some 20 km from here.

On the outskirts of the city lies an expansive but shabby-looking complex with beige colour walls beside the banks of a mountain stream. This is Kashmir's only correctional facility for juvenile offenders.

There are at least 19 "offenders", including two alleged stone throwers, inside this highly fortified compound, surrounded by concertina wires with round-the-clock police security.

The area beyond the razor wires is part of a touristic spot, usually thronged by picnickers to the nearby famed Mughal gardens of Harwan, some 20 km from here.
The kids -- accused of various offences like rape, sodomy, murder, theft and drug-peddling -- usually peep out from windows fitted with long iron grills.

If by chance, picnickers outside this famed spot happen to be schoolchildren playing on the pebbled banks of the brook that flows from the Dachhigam National Park, the plight of these juveniles can only be imagined, as also the sharp contrast. Questions are being raised over the efficacy of the facility manned by overworked and untrained officers who often resort to shortcuts to run it.

"They usually get irritated when they see children playing outside. They give vent to their anger and frustration by resorting to violence against each other," an employee working at the facility told this correspondent.

"Some even try self-inflicting injuries," said the employee, admitting that the complex has nothing "correctional" about it except in its name. The home has no recreation or sports facilities for the psycho-social care of these kids, as prescribed in the juvenile justice act of the state.

"We need facilities. These kids need counseling by trained professionals. We do not have that. We cannot reform them like this."

The structure, which was established in 2011, seems to be falling apart due to leaking water pipes. "We fear it may crumble at any time", the official said.

The facility doesn't even have any transport facility. "Imagine some inmate taking ill during the night. We don't know what to do but thank God that such a situation has not arisen so far."

The state government passed the Juvenile Justice Act in 2013 after the 2008 agitation that saw hundreds of kids detained for taking part in violent protests. The act calls for corrective measures like establishing a Juvenile Justice Board, special police units, children protection units, observation homes, special homes and a panel to manage these facilities.

The measures, though, have not been implemented so far despite repeated court directions.

Farhana Latief, a Srinagar-based child activist and lawyer, said the facility at Harwan was "just another jail".

She said instead of helping these kids to transform, the so-called home "frustrates and annoys them even more, making them angrier and more prone to crimes when they come out."

She said such facilities "are not for punishments but for counseling and reformation. Unfortunately that is not happening here."

Irshada Ayoub, who manages the facility with a long experience of serving in government-run orphanages and the Central Jail in Srinagar, said she had been "trying her best" to help these children to reform.

"It is not only the government which has a responsibility. The onus also lies on society," Ayoub said.

Sarita Chauhan, secretary, Social Welfare Department, appeared to be aware of the lack of facilities, pledging to change things.

"The government is committed to providing every facility to the juvenile home. In the coming months you will see a lot of change happening there," Chauhan said.

She said they were expecting more funds to develop the facility that has so far been home to some 680 juvenile offenders since 2011.

IANS

Srinagar’s Juvenile Home is Anything But Home!

Srinagar’s Juvenile Home is Anything But Home!
Zeenat Zeeshan Fazil
Published on December 21, 2015

[Source: http://dailykashmirimages.com/Details/98961/srinagars-juvenile-home-is-anything-but-home]

Srinagar, Dec 20: From the fortified windows of the two-storey building, some children are seen watching the hustle outside. They wave at the people they see moving around freely. These children, undergoing imprisonment for diverse crimes, are locked behind the iron doors of this ‘Juvenile Observation Home’ in the outskirts of Srinagar city.

For a commoner, entering into this ‘home’ is quiet disturbing. The white-washed building, nestled among mountains, is highly fortified and fenced by mesh and concertina wires.

The compound wall is just three feet high -- thus the risk of inmates escaping is quite high!

Though supposed to be a ‘juvenile home’, but the place is no different from a jail.

In these winters, the building lacks proper heating arrangements. Marble floor is unfurnished, iron doors and windows are without curtains. So the chill comes in from one side and leaves from the other!

The building has 18 rooms for minors and every door and window is always locked. The ground floor houses the office of the Superintendent, a dining hall, recreation hall and a kitchen.

All the doors to the first floor, which house the minor prisoners, are made of iron, and remain locked. The keys are with the police personnel.

The floor has 18 rooms and each room has six beds with old, worn-out beddings.

Sitting on their beds in a room, the children looked quite scarred when this reporter tried to speak with some of them. First they were hesitant to talk, but later a few of them opened up.

“It pains us all to see young buds here, but we have no choice but to keep them like this,” says Afroza Irshad, Superintendent at the Juvenile Observatory Home.

 “I try to counsel these children to desist from their wrong acts. I cannot help them beyond this.”

Afrooza says she took charge of the home some 11 months ago and since then she is not only the Superintendent, but also works as a guard (‘Chokidar’) here.

As per her, there is immense dearth of the staff in this observatory home; the home doesn’t have any night guard (chokidar), store-keeper, caretakers, orderlies, case-workers, medical and nursing staff, etc.

“It’s me, one junior assistant and an orderly who look after an entire affair of this home,” Superintendent said, adding, “I have few (10) police guards from district police lines (DPL) to assist me, which is not enough.”

Though the  ‘daily routine’ or ‘time-table’ of these juveniles talks about the counseling sessions, group discussions, health education, group activities and singing et. al., but the Superintended admits that nothing is being done here.

“We don’t have teachers who could teach them.  Even the counselor, which is the main component to run any such home, is not available here. Whenever I (Superintended) get time after finishing routine office work, I conduct their counseling sessions,” she said.

This Juvenile home doesn’t have any vehicle. So in case of any emergency, they have to hire private vehicle from outside.

“Yes, we have no official vehicle; whenever there is any emergency ( in case any of them falls  ill or is hurt by other inmate ) and we have to him them to a doctor, we hire private vehicles and pay from our pockets as no funds for such purposes have been allotted to us  by the department, “ says Afrooza Irshad.

A visit to this juvenile home is enough to understand that how neglected it is. Though the authorities, particularly the Law and the Social Welfare departments make tall claims about the issue, fact of the matter is that this juvenile home is anything but a home.

Despite repeated attempts, Director Social Welfare, Kashmir, couldn’t be contacted for comments.

Meanwhile, Valley-based social activist and lawyer, Abdul Rashid Hanjoora told ‘Kashmir Images’ the home is against the spirit of theme on which it was set up. The purpose of home is reformation so that these juveniles don’t commit further offences.

However, he says “this home has nothing to offer them.  How do you expect them (inmates) to change? This way their mindset will be same, their behavior will be same, and this way their future activities will be same.”

“This home is simply a jail, nothing else,” he added.

Hanjoora says that the Social Welfare Department (under which the home functions) violates the directions of the High Court on how to keep these inmates. The rules are there, but they are not implemented on the ground. 

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The 12-Year-Old Who Stopped Our Car And Threw Stones At Us In Kashmir

The 12-Year-Old Who Stopped Our Car And Threw Stones At Us In Kashmir

by Sudhi Ranjan Sen

Published: September 21, 2016 00:35 IST

[Source: http://www.ndtv.com/blog/the-12-year-old-who-stopped-our-car-and-pelted-stones-at-us-in-kashmir-1464397?site=full]

Our vehicle screeched to a halt. We were returning from Uri where 18 soldiers were killed in a terror attack a day before. Security forces deployed along the highway were pulling back for the day.

From the front seat of the car, I could only see the top of a head.  A boy, no older than 12, had forced our vehicle to stop. With him was a group of another dozen, all in the same age group - 12 to 14 years old.

These are the "stone-pelters" of Kashmir, mostly minors, groups of young boys who take over the streets and highways as the security forces withdraw each day. 

Our driver Ashiq, in his mid-fifties, apologised profusely to the boys for having broken an unofficial lock-down imposed by separatists in Kashmir. They were not listening and threw stones at our vehicle.

Sheikh Momin, our camera person, jumped out to reason with the group. Momin is local boy who has studied in Srinagar and now works with NDTV in New Delhi.

As he tried to talk to the boys, they zeroed in on a band he was wearing. "Why the band on your hand, it is un-Islamic?" a boy, about 12, said.

Momin, in his mid-20s and who wears faded jeans, loves apps on his phone and listens to pop music, was stumped. As he searched for an answer, the young boys said, "You are a Hindu."

And then, pointing to the camera slung across Momin's shoulder, another accusation - "Indian media."

A few adults watched from a distance as the boys conducted their inquisition. No one made an attempt to stop them.

Sensing trouble, Ashiq bowed and touched the feet of the 12-year-old to ask for forgiveness for having violated the lock-down orders issued by the Hurriyat and being enforced by its band of child soldiers.

He then had to listen to a long sermon and a heap of abuses from the boy, younger than his grandson. He did so quietly and was finally allowed to go after he promised never to violate the lock-down again.

Along the highway, an elderly man who keeps his small shop open on the sly, said "I don't believe Burhan Wani's killing triggered this, something doesn't match."

At night, slogans of "Azaadi" or freedom blare out from a mosque in the heart of capital Srinagar, where we are staying.

Over the last few months, it is groups of boys like the ones we met who have been holding the streets of Kashmir to ransom. Since July 8, when Hizbul Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani was killed by security forces, the Valley has been on the boil. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has visited the Valley several times, even leading an all-party delegation. Mobile and internet services have been snapped many times and restored as many times.

New Delhi has pointed at Pakistan and there is strong proof. The National Investigative Agency or NIA is probing slush funds landing in the Valley and being used to prop up the protesters. But there are no clear answers to who and how these young boys are being organized and motivated.

(Sudhi Ranjan Sen is NDTV's Editor Security and Strategic Affairs)

Defining "Child" and "Child Soldier"

Children pelting a police vehicle with stones . KT Photo: Imran Ali

Defining "child" and "child soldier"

[Source:  Child Soldiers: Victims or War Criminals? — Regional Academy on the United Nations
http://www.ra-un.org/uploads/4/7/5/4/47544571/child_soldiers_-_victims_or_war_criminals.pdf]

Before we are able to analyze criminal responsibility of child soldiers, we need to firstly determine what definitions of "child" and "child soldier" are. According to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, a child is "every human being below the age of eighteen years unless under the law applicable to the child, majority is attained earlier".[1] Taking into consideration that this treaty is the single most ratified human rights treaty in the world, we shall take this definition as the operative for the use of this paper. However, definitions of child soldiers have varied and could have been deduced only indirectly from international conventions, treaties or national legislation.

Although there are differences in the initial age threshold for taking part in hostilities and being recruited by the armed forces, all of the international instruments are generally leaning toward the age limit of 18, some explicitly while others advise the same practice. The operative definition of child soldier that the UNICEF is using, and that is based on the Cape Town Principles from 1997, is that "a ‘child soldier’ is any child – boy or girl – under 18 years of age, who is part of any kind of regular or irregular armed force or armed group in any capacity, including, but not limited to: cooks, porters, messengers, and anyone accompanying such groups other than family members".[2] The Paris Principles from 2007 state that "A child associated with an armed force or armed group” refers to any person below 18 years of age who is or who has been recruited or used by an armed force or armed group in any capacity, including but not limited to children, boys and girls, used as fighters, cooks, porters, messengers, spies or for sexual purposes. It does not only refer to a child who is taking or has taken a direct part in hostilities".[3] As we can see, the Paris Principles have changed the phrase "child soldier" to "a child associated with an armed force or armed group", but the essence of the definition is the same. 

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[1] Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 s 1 (1)

[2] Cape Town Principles 1997 Definitions

[3] Paris Principles 2007 Definitions