Children and police
Recently the mutilated bodies of two minor girls, Hajra and Sassi, were found at a place adjacent to the Gadap police station, Karachi. Three policemen, who already had a shady record, were arrested and the fourth is absconding. Gadap SHO and four others were remanded in police custody.
The contention of the Sindh police chief that this time the police “are serious about setting an example” rings hollow in view of the special treatment being meted out to police officers presumed guilty (Dawn editorial, February 27).
Police violence against street children, especially in the Third World countries, is well documented. In Guatemala, a boy, Beto R., 15, complained: "The police treat us badly. They hit us with their rifles, or with their sticks, on our backs and stomachs.
Not for any particular reason . . . just because they feel like it." In September 1996 more than 10 street children in Guatemala were murdered under suspicious circumstances, yet by April of the following year all of the perpetrators were still at large.
In Bulgaria, the police have harassed and beaten street children, chased them away from areas of safety and shelter, jabbed them with electric shock batons, smeared the glue that the children sniff on their faces and clothing, and sprayed them with gas.
Police robbed street children of their money, and sought out girls on the street for sexual harassment. Often, they were witnessed by passersby or other police officers.
More than 18 million children in India live and work on the streets. Street children have been routinely detained illegally, beaten, and tortured and sometimes killed by the police.
The scale of violence against street children in India sometimes included custodial deaths of children. Between 1986 and 1995, 14 children are known to have died in custody in the Andhra Pradesh province, but no police officers were prosecuted in that period.
The situation, as told to the Human Rights Watch, is no better in Kenya either. The street girls were asked for sex in addition to money to avoid arrest or to be released from police custody.
In 1996, 18 months after the acquittal of one Kenyan police reservist for killing a street boy, another street boy was killed by a police reservist.
Several factors contribute to this phenomenon of police atrocities: police perceptions of street children as vagrants and criminals, widespread corruption and a culture of police violence, the inadequacy and non- implementation of legal safeguards, and the level of impunity that officials enjoy.
Street children are easy targets because they are young, often small, poor, ignorant of their rights, and frequently do not have responsible adults to look out for them.
The police also have financial incentives to resort to violence against children. They beat children for their money or demand payment for protection, to avoid false charges, or for release from (often illegal) custody.
United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan appointed Paulo Sergio Pinheiro of Brazil as an independent expert to lead a global study on violence against children.
The purpose of the study is to provide an in-depth picture of the prevalence, nature and causes of violence against children. The study will be guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child which emphasizes children’s rights to physical and personal integrity, and outlines states’ obligations to protect them from “all forms of physical or mental violence”, including sexual and other forms of exploitation, abduction, armed conflict, and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.
It also obliges the state to enact preventive measures and ensure that all child victims of violence receive the support and assistance they require.
A few days ago I read the news about what happened in KHI.
Esaa laga ke dil me kisee ne Churaa mardiaa hu mere.