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End Injustice Against Child
- Details
- Published on Wednesday, 18 July 2007 00:18
Never mind the circumstances that led to his incarceration; what is infuriating is that no one - from the arresting officer to prosecutor and the sentencing by magistrate - sought to establish his age.
Worse still, social workers should have been brought in to give their report, and his disadvantaged background would have mitigated his case.
These law yardsticks were not applied, and the questions that remain unanswered is, who jailed this boy and why? What's a 13-year-old boy doing among adults?
The perils in our jails are too many to enumerate - sexual abuse is rife, and the accompanying HIV/Aids, crowding and other infectious diseases.
One would be hard-pressed to understand how this boy escaped scrutiny from law enforcers, who treated him as an adult and sentenced adequately.
Moreover, prison authorities, no doubt horrified they could be holding a minor, have applied for a review, which is yet to be granted, exposing further weakness in the law system.
There is no gesture that can redeem the failures of the system than immediate release of the minor, and a closer look at why this ineptitude went undetected for so long.
