UN launches study on children deprived of liberty

By Hassan Isilow

JOHANNESBURG (AA) - The UN on Monday launched a global study on children deprived of personal liberty in Southern Africa.

"Consideration needs to be given as to how each state can implement the recommendations in the study and raise awareness, or promote a change in stigmatizing attitudes and behavior towards children who are deprived of their liberty," South Africa's Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation, Candith Mashego-Dlamini said at the launch in capital Pretoria.

The study analyzes the amount and causes of children suffering from liberty deprivation, with particular emphasis on child imprisonment.

In her speech, Mashego-Dlamini said 32 years ago, a global conference held in Zimbabwe on children, repression and Apartheid in South Africa found that children in South Africa faced brutality under Apartheid, which ended in 1994.

"At the time, the world was shocked by the revelations of the brutality of the Apartheid regime towards children in South Africa. It is well known that many thousands of children were detained in the struggle against Apartheid and that children were tortured in South African prisons," she said.

Noting that this was later confirmed by testimonies at truth and reconciliation commissions held in South Africa at the end of the Apartheid regime, she added: "Almost all survivors required psychotherapy to enable them to overcome the trauma in their young lives," she said.

Mashego-Dlamini underlined that when the first democratically-elected government under the late President Nelson Mandela came to power in 1994, Mandela ordered the government urgently attend to the issue of detained and imprisoned children and juveniles.

She quoted Mandela as saying: "The basic principle from which we will proceed from now onwards is that we must rescue the children of the nation and ensure that the system of criminal justice must be the very last resort in the case of juvenile justice."

Asserting that the decision led to successive governments passing laws and practices that protected child offenders, Mashego-Dlamini said South African law created a new procedural framework for dealing with children who come into conflict with the law.

"It represents a rights-based approach to children accused of committing crimes. However, it also seeks to ensure children's accountability and respect for the fundamental freedoms of others and, through the use of diversion, alternative sentencing and restorative justice, prevents crime and promotes public safety," she stressed.

Since the end of Apartheid, South Africa has progressed in terms of children's rights by introducing key interventions, reducing number of children awaiting trial and ensuring children's rights are protected, the minister said.