Child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse

Children and Justice

© UNICEF/HQ 03-0042/ Noorani

An instructor teaches health education to a class of adolescent boys in a juvenile correction centre in the city of Erbil, Iraq.

Frequently, the conditions under which they must survive are deplorable and inhumane - no heat, inadequate food, insufficient beds, lice-ridden blankets, poor sanitation facilities and no exercise. Some are kept in solitary confinement for long periods. Physical abuse is common; injuries include broken bones, broken hands, damaged eardrums, bruises and deep trauma often resulting from torture and interrogation. 

Children are frequently sexually abused. Parents are commonly denied visitation rights and are often not informed of a child's whereabouts. The detention of children is severely distressing and disruptive for their families.

• More than 1 million children world-wide are deprived of their liberty by law enforcement officials
• Most children deprived of their liberty are under arrest or awaiting trial. Six years after the genocide in Rwanda   4,454 children were in prison awaiting resolution of their case. More than 450 of these children had been formally cleared of any involvement in the genocide. (Only 196 children have been released as of June 2003.)
• Most of the children in detention are not serious criminals. A significant number have not even committed a criminal offence. They are deprived of their liberty for what are called ‘status offences’ such as vagrancy, begging, smoking, dropping out from school and alcohol use. Other cases show children detained because they were accompanying a parent to detention or seeking asylum in another country. Some children are jailed for reasons such as race, religion, nationality, ethnicity or political views. 

There is a growing realization that depriving children who are in conflict with the law of their liberty is often unnecessary or even counter-productive. Indeed, a significant proportion of professionals working with children in detention facilities readily concede that many, if not most, should not be locked up.