“Soaring Number” of Children Detained in Prisons,.
“Soaring Number” of Children Detained in Prisons,.
The outside of Correctional Center 1 in Phnom Penh, photographed on November 11, 2021. (CamboJA/ Pring Samrang)
by Jack Brook
Khuon Narim
1 June 2023
A “soaring number” of minors are being detained in the majority of prisons at an “alarming rate,” human rights NGO Licadho reported in a Thursday statement published on international Children’s Day.
The number of inmates under 18-years-old has increased by more than 30% over the last year in 19 of 30 Cambodian prisons monitored by Licadho, the report found based on “information provided by prison administrations.” Many appear to have been placed in prison due to Cambodia’s ongoing drug crackdown, Licadho alleged.
In April, 1,658 minors were behind bars, almost all of them boys. Around half were in pre-trial detention, while 37% awaited final verdict, Licadho said. Of those minors, were 82 “young children” living in prisons and 30 pregnant women and girls.
Justice Ministry spokesperson Chin Malin said that the court has followed the law when implementing the procedures for pretrial detention.
“As we have recorded [minor] persons who have been detained in prison, there is no increase, it seems stable or declining,” he said, but did not provide alternative data to Licadho’s statistics.
Many prisons remain overcrowded with an average of 250% over their official capacity, Licadho reported.
The Interior Ministry’s General Department of Prisons spokesperson Nouth Savna said that the prisons simply receive the defendants sent by the courts.
“My place is just taking them for custody,” Savna said. “As for [imprisonment of minors] increasing, we don’t have the ability to do anything besides receive them. When they have sent [the accused person] to us, we will place them into prison.”
“The situation is not overcrowded like before, the detention of minors is better now,” he said, without providing statistics contrary to those cited in Licadho’s report. “We have not detained them with other inmates like before,” referring to incarcerating minors being placed in the same facility with adults.
However, Licadho reported that in some prisons minors remain incarcerated with adults.
To address children’s detention, the government built a facility called the Youth Rehabilitation Center in December 2021 in Kandal province to serve as the Kingdom’s primary juvenile detention center for children and young people up to 24 years of age. The center currently houses at least 130 convicted boys, according to Licadho.
Licadho claimed efforts to reduce overcrowding have “failed” and warned that housing children from all over the country in a single facility is difficult on family members, who “risk being unable to have contact with or provide essential support to their children.”
The rights group noted that legal representation is mandatory for minors facing criminal charges but “many children” have told Licadho they did not receive the opportunity to speak with a lawyer or apply for bail.
Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesperson Y Rin could not be reached for comment.
Licadho called for all eligible minors, mothers and pregnant people to receive bail, to guarantee that every minor facing criminal charges has access to a lawyer and that prison conditions are improved to ensure access to healthcare and other basic needs.
Cambodian government strategic plans have called for reducing the incarceration of children.
“Modern thinking, recognized by the new code, is that punishing a child through the criminal justice process can actually increase the likelihood that the child will sink into self-identification with criminality and re-offend, with the likelihood of even more serious crimes,” stated the UNICEF-supported Juvenile Justice Law Strategic and Operational Plan 2018 to 2020.
“This is why it is necessary to intervene as soon as possible in order to prevent, rehabilitate and reintegrate those young people into society before they become criminals,” noted the 240-page report prepared by the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation.
While the 2016 Law on Juvenile Justice states that community service, suspended sentences and conditional release can serve in place of prison time, Licadho said “these alternatives are underused.”
When contacted Thursday late afternoon, UNICEF Cambodia spokesperson Hadrien Bonnaud said the organization was unable to respond prior to publication.
The Justice Ministry told CamboJA that it rejected Licadho’s demands and said there were “a lot of measures and methods based on the laws” to deal with the problem but did not elaborate.
“Concerning security and public order, we can’t carry out what Licadho has called for to release detainees to reduce overcrowding,” Malin said.
Ministry of Social Affairs, Veteran and Youth Rehabilitation spokesperson Touch Channy also claimed that the issue of the reported increase in detained children was not his ministry’s fault.
“The detention of juvenile and young children is not our issue, my center [the Youth Rehabilitation Center] has just received [detainees] from prisons,” he said.
“We are only waiting to receive them when they have sent them,” Channy said. He said there are no overcrowded juveniles at the center in Kandal province, about no more than 100 detainees.
Licadho warned that “excessive” detention harms children and their families.
“We demand an end to this senseless approach of defaulting to detention—in violation of the rights of minors and the best interests of the child,” Licadho stated.
https://cambojanews.com/soaring-number- ... p-reports/
"That was probably Londo...He is always shitty." - Marvin
If the violation of rights of minors infringed to ensure that the little bastards don't go around snatching necklaces off babies on motos, I'm all for it; sorry Licadho. You can't just release criminals to do as they wish with a slap on the wrists & back to the exact same crappy parents that put them in prison in the first place. What do they think this is, San Francisco? No thanks.
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Meum est propositum in taberna mori,
ut sint Guinness proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."
ut sint Guinness proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."
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