Funds for legal aid for kids demanded

LAHORE : The government neither established funds for free legal services to children nor made rehabilitation centres for them, said Sarmad Ali, Director Legal Awareness Watch (LAW), in a press briefing at a local hotel here on Saturday.

According to LAW, the provincial decision-making corners under the Act 2018 are to establish funds for providing free legal services to children. People from all walks of life and media personnel said children across Pakistan should not be housed in police stations as well as in ordinary prisons regulated under Pakistan Prison Rules 1978 instead in observation homes during the investigation period and rehabilitation centres under the law to rehabilitate them to bring them to normal life, said the director.

He added that the authorities concerned with no further delay should notify rules of business under section 24 of the Act 2018 for implementing it in its letter and spirit due to this failure juvenile justice committees across Pakistan have not been made functional for resolving minor and major nature penal violations under section 10.

Functional juvenile justice committees across Pakistan would discharge the courts from the burden of pendency of cases and allowing restorative justice to flourish in the country through diversion from the ordinary penal sanctions, he added.

No attempt to date has been made at the federal nor provincial levels any to ensure non-disclosure of the identity of children who come in conflict with the law the Act 2018 demanded the identity of the children who come in violation of the penal law to be protected at all levels even the media reporters, police, and courts had to follow this stipulation of the law, he added.