Seminar Held On 'rights Of Children, Women Detainees Held At Islamabad

National Commission for Children, Federal Ombudsman Secretariat on Tuesday arranged a day-long seminar on 'strengthening the realization of the rights of children and women detainees'.

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 3rd Apr, 2018 ) :National Commission for Children, Federal Ombudsman Secretariat on Tuesday arranged a day-long seminar on 'strengthening the realization of the rights of children and women detainees'.

Addressing the participants, Advisor Federal Ombudsman Secretariat and Project Head Dr Raania Ahsan informed the participants that the project was initiated on the directives of Supreme Court to ameliorate the condition of children and women in jails.

She said that the project aimed at raising the awareness amongst stakeholders and take practical steps to address the situation. Dr Raania said that the project was based on the need assessment and that a comprehensive action plan will be prepared while the execution and implementation of the project will be carried out in a phased manner.

She said that a committee was constituted under the chairmanship of Senator S.M. Zafar while inspection teams were formed to visit different jails in all the provinces to get first hand information about condition of women and children in jails.

It was formed with the mandate to observe plight of prisoners languishing in jails, provision of facilities in accordance with law and jail manual and efforts of jail administration for curbing incidents of torture on prisoners, she added.

Dr Raania said that the committee was also given mandate to observe provision of facilities for visitors of family members of prisoners, security, transportation and proper handling of prisoners in court premises.

She said that it was observed that conditions in jails were miserable due to shortage of staff, over-crowdedness and lack of sanitation and health facilities besides provision of proper food and non-production of under-trail prisoners to courts.

She said other issues which were observed included un-necessary or illegal detention of under-trial prisoners involved in petty crimes, lack of educational and skill training facilities and poor external oversight mechanism for inspection and added it was also observed by the committee that there were no separate barracks for women and juveniles.

Women were exposed to different kinds of fears including harassment and abuse, women who were released from jails were not accepted by the respective families, she added. Dr Raania said that it was also observed that there was no facility for proper education for juveniles and children, who were born in jails suffer with their mothers for no reason and most of the juveniles were in jails for suspicious of petty crimes or due to false allegations.