Help 250 children in prison in Burundi + Cambodia

 APRIL 19, 2023

International Bridges to Justice relies on your support to enable their taskforces of lawyers in Cambodia and Burundi to minimize/prevent interrogative torture in the police custody for children, reduce the length of time they spend in pre-trial detentionand ensure fair trial. Children who are detained frequently fall through the cracks of overwhelmed and poorly resourced legal systems, leading to their confinement with adults, which raises their likelihood of harm. The situation of detention and imprisonment of children in Cambodia and Burundi is worrisome since they should attend school instead of being detained or incarcerated, where they also suffer from inadequate nutrition. Your donation will assist us in carrying out our mission. Please read our report on the 28 children we've assisted since September of 2022.

Burundi

These past months in Burundi, our lawyers have provided 28 children with legal protection during early stages of arrest and detention at the police stations. Nine out of the 28 were identified during our regular police-cell-monitoring visits. Five of these nine children were immediately released. In total, 22 of the 28, that is 80% of children we helped were released. If not for these crucial and timely interventions, they were to be charged, detained, and tried in criminal trials. Below are just two of the 28 stories.

Bella’s Story

Bella, a 16-year-old child in Burundi, spend 3 days in police custody after being arrested and detained for an alleged offense. Bella was accused of theft by her boss. While Bella should have been sent to a center for minors, immediately after the arrest, she was transferred to a police station. During twice-a-week visits to police cells, defense lawyers of the BBJ team quickly learned from Bella that she was arrested only the basis of complaint by her boss and without any evidence. . Supported by the Deputy Central Commissioner in charge of Criminal Investigation Division of the National Police, BBJ defenders explained that Bella’s detention was tactical, a ploy by her boss to avoid paying Bella her outstanding salary. Although a minor, Bella worked hard for the man who accused her of theft as a domestic helper, working unpaid for a year and a half. Additionally, BBJ defenders also brought to the attention of police that employing a minor was fundamentally illegal. Only two days after BBJ’s intervention, Bella was released and her boss was asked to pay her salary.

Lola’s Story

Lola* is 16 years old; she was detained in Buturere police station while 2 months pregnant. She was placed in a holding cell with adults. Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of BBJ defenders, she was released.

Radio Rights Awareness Campaign

 On the 2^nd December 2022, a defender from BBJ took part as a panelist in a radio program to discuss children's rights especially with relation to street children. BBJ defense lawyer emphasized that street children are frequently subjected to mass arrests and detained in police cells for extended periods, sometimes more than a week, before being transferred to a re-education center.

The conversation centered on identifying sustainable solutions to the problem of street children. BBJ lawyer explained root causes, which include abuse and violence within families, extreme poverty of some families, lack of support for orphans, and parental disagreements and divorces for children to leave homes and wander on the streets. The panelists discussed the negative consequences of this phenomenon, such as children being out of school and unable to prepare for their future, becoming victims of thefts, violence against girl-children, falling prey to drug abuse, and being frequently arrested and imprisoned. The panelists then discussed the strategy of the Ministry of Human Rights, Gender and National Solidarity to counter this phenomenon, and proposed several solutions. Firstly, they stressed the need for updated and reliable data to better understand the issue. They also emphasized the importance of raising awareness and involving everyone, including law enforcement officials, in the fight against street children. Additionally, they proposed addressing poverty in households and setting up transit centers where children found on the streets can be housed and reintegrated to the society. The proposed solutions offer hope for sustainable change, but it will require the collective effort of individuals, organizations, and the government to tackle the root causes of this issue and provide these vulnerable children with a better future. BBJ defender explained how BBJ is protecting the rights of the children, including street children when they come in conflict with law.

Thank you again for your support to IBJ! Every child deserves a second chance!

International Bridges to Justice (“IBJ”)—a global focus on justice for children in conflict with the law--helping imprisoned children in Burundi and Cambodia

IBJ is continues its worldwide efforts seeking justice for children. Your help will enable the legal task forces of IBJ in Cambodia and Burundi to reduce the amount of time kids spend in pre-trial detention. Your support will also lessen the possibility that children will be subjected to torture and mistreatment during questioning by the police and increase their chances of receiving due process of law.

IBJ emphasizes the need for clients to have early access to counsel. Too often, in overworked and under-resourced police departments, forced or torture-induced confessions are the main investigative tool of police. Such coercive tactics are too often inflicted on children. Children are too frequently detained by the police, even when a better alternative would be to release them to their parents or to a responsible adult. Children are frequently housed with adult prisoners after they are arrested. This increases their vulnerability to abuse and their risk of injury. In Burundi and Cambodia, where IBJ has worked extensively, the incarceration rate for children is staggeringly high and and conditions of incarceration are often appalling.

More than 2,000 children are being held in prisons in Cambodia. Mass arrests of street children are becoming more common in Burundi. In both places, children are held in police jails for days before being sent to juvenile rehabilitation centers. Moreover, centers for juvenile detention and rehabilitation lack space and the conditions at such facilities are often very poor.

It is fundamental that children should be in school, not behind bars. Detention in secure facilities should be a last resort, not the default alternative for children in conflict with the law.

Creating a humane and effective juvenile justice system that respects and protects the human rights of children is vital. IBJ programming gives the highest priority to work with child justice.

Your donations make our work possible! Here are two of the stories of the children we have helped in2022:

CAMBODIA

The number of Cambodia’s children in detention has increased. Children now represent 5% of the prison population.

Due to a lack of resources, children are often housed with adult males, often men who have been convicted of serious violent crimes. This practice can subject children to physical and sexual abuse, and, at minimum, it subjects them to unhealthy influences that can increase the chances these children will continue to engage in criminal activity. Access to education, vocational training, and even minimal recreational activity for these children is very limited. Incarceration can increase these children’s downward spiral into criminality. International human rights standards hold that detention should be a rare for children charged with crimes. Our affiliate in Cambodia, Cambodian Bridges to Justice (“CBJ”), advocatedtirelessly for children to be returned to their families, breaking the vicious cycle of incarceration leading to continued criminality.

Here are two of CBJ’s stories from between August and November 2022:

“Young boys, unaware of their rights, got a reduced sentence and were released few months later”

Kosal and Dara were 16 and 17 when they were arrested by the police. They were frightened and confused when they were arrested. They immediately confessed to stealing a motorbike. As juveniles, Kosal and Dara should have qualified for state-sponsored legal aid. However, because they were unaware, their families struggled to pay for a private lawyer.
This financial burden placed the family further into poverty. Despite paying for a private lawyer, Kosal and Dara's case was not processed in accordance with the rights afforded to juveniles. Cambodian law requires juveniles to be tried within 3 months. However, for Kosal and Dara, a trial was held one year later.

“Rights awareness training event in a Correctional Centre”

In September, CBJ held a "Know Your Rights” training event in a correctional facility in the province of Phnom Penh-- . The purpose of the session was to educate children incarcerated in the Centre about their rights. The attendees included 50 incarcerated youth, most of whom were arrested for drug-related charges. Eighteen of attendees were still pretrial detainees who had no legal representation. The informal training session was conducted by Mr. Vandeth.Booklets that outlined the basic human rights detainees are guaranteed under the Cambodian constitution were distributed to the children. The pamphlet contained crucial information about the rights guaranteed to imprisoned children by Cambodian law. It provided the children with tools to guard against systemic abuses that children frequently suffer in Cambodian prisons and lockups. For example, the children were informed that police were obligated to tell them why they were being arrested and imprisoned. They were also informed about their right to representation without cost and the details about that right under Cambodian law.

IBJ is the only organization providing rights awareness training within Cambodia’s prisons. The program provides access to vital information in the darkest places in Cambodia’s criminal justice system.

BURUNDI

From August 2022 through November 2022, the Burundi Bridges to Justice (“BBJ”) Taskforce of professional lawyers assisted 41 children in police custody in Bujumbura’s police stations. This work prevented these children from getting lost in the criminal justice system—something which frequently occurs in Burundi’s under-resourced system.

Here is the story of one of these youths:

“Young girl, falsely arrested for theft, quickly released”

A young girl, herein called “Lisa”, spent three days in police lockup, facing unfounded allegations. Under the law, she should have been sent directly to a juvenile facility.

During visits to the police lockups, often called “dungeons”, Burundi Bridges to Justice (“BBJ”) members heard Lisa's story. The accusation had been made by her boss. BBJ argued to the Officiers de Police Judiciaire(“OPJ”), the officials that heard the case initially, that the accusation was a pretext for her boss not paying her wages. It was revealed after investigation that the child worked for the accuser as a cleaning lady for a year without being paid, and that her employment was in fact illegal. Two days after this intervention, the OPJ ordered the child released and required her boss to pay her salary. Child labour is punishable by law. The situation of Lisa is not an isolated incident. BBJ fights against all arbitrary incarcerations and abusive practices aimed at Burundian children.

Many countries struggle with juvenile justice, particularly countries in which justice systems are not well supported by the government. Abuses are also common in systems in which justice actors are not educated about international standards for juvenile justice and about the special challenges of working with children in conflict with the law. IBJ’s extensive institutional knowledge and experience with representation of children has provided its staff with extraordinary insight into juvenile justice. Working with children is a highest priority for IBJ’s global work. IBJ’s publications, its “Know Your Rights” sessions, its advocacy, and its professional training curricula educate the public and justice actors about the subject of justice for children. The two examples cited are only a small sampling of the IBJ success stories. Throughout the world, IBJ has remedied miscarriages of justice affecting children.

Your support helps us continue and expand this important work!

Links:

• IBJ website