Times of India: Guwahati: Sunday, April 21, 2013.
Despite a
steady rise in crimes committed by minors in Assam, the juvenile justice system
in the state is in a shambles due to acute shortage of observation homes and
children's homes. Only Kamrup, Nagaon and Jorhat districts have observation
homes while shelter homes run by NGOs are mostly located in Guwahati.
The Jorhat
observation home caters to over 11 districts - Jorhat, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong,
Dibrugarh, Tinsukia, Sivasagar, Lakhimpur, Darrang, Udalguri and Sonitpur.
"There
are only four observation homes and three children's homes run by the
government in Assam. The state government failed to set up seven new 'open
shelters' in 2011 despite availability of funds under the Integrated Child
Protection Scheme of the Union ministry of women and child development. Because
of this, the project approval board of the Union ministry declined the request
for grants for three existing shelters in 2012," said Suhas Chakma,
director of the Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR).
The ACHR,
which has done a detailed survey on juvenile delinquency in the region, found
out that the Child Welfare Committees (CWCs) and the Juvenile Justice Boards
(JJBs) across state are almost non-functional.
"As of
July 2012, about 1,635 cases were pending at the JJBs in the state. An RTI
report revealed that the percentage of pendency of cases at JJBs ranges from
33.3 per cent in Udalguri district to 100 per cent in Dhemaji and Morigaon
districts," the ACHR report said.
The RTI
report also stated that not a single pending case from Kokrajhar, Dibrugarh,
Darrang, Lakhimpur, Udalguri, Dhubri, Goalpara, Barpeta, Golaghat, Morigaon,
Chirang, Dhemaji and Nagaon districts was reviewed at the JJBs till March 30,
2012.
Chakma also
alleged that juveniles, irrespective of their age and sex, are treated as
adults and subjected to gross human rights violations including arbitrary
arrest and detention, torture, extrajudicial execution and sexual assault in
the name of counter-insurgency operations in Assam.
Endorsing the
report, the city coordinator of Childline, a nationwide helpline for children
in distress, Nirmal Deka said, "It's surprising that the state is yet to
give proper attention to delinquent children, who need help to reform
themselves. Trafficking-prone districts like Dhubri, Kokrajhar, Baksa, Chirang,
and Bongaigaon do not have any homes."
When
contacted, the officials of the CWCs refused to respond to the report and said,
"There are no funds to set up shelter homes. Moreover, there is a shortage
of skilled manpower in observation homes where children are kept for
behavioural modification."
Assam topped
in juvenile delinquency among the northeastern states in 2011 with 405 cases,
according to the National Crime Records Bureau.
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