The Ansar Burney Trust has been working for the protection and rights of children in custody for over 25 years now and we will continue to fight for this just cause for as long as necessary.

We estimate that there are as many as 4,500 juveniles in Pakistani prisons. These include children who are awaiting trial, those already sentenced and even those who were born into imprisonment; with no fault of their own but because their own mothers were prisoners there.

Those who were born in prison used to bear the burden of their birth certificates which explicitly stated the name of jail they were born in; and thereby barring innumerable opportunities in life. However this practice was abolished in 1989 when the Ansar Burney Trust successfully lobbied the government and Mr. Ansar Burney met the then Prime Minister Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto – who issued new directives to write city of birth rather than prison.

Those children who are born in prison are forcibly taken away from their mothers at the age of five, without her having any clue as to their whereabouts. In many cases, that is the last time the mother and child ever see each other.

The most shocking case handled by the Ansar Burney Trust regarding children who are born in prison was that of Mohammed Akhtar – who was born after his mother was sexually assaulted in prison. She died five years later, but Akhtar was kept in prison his whole life from birth to the age of 40; never seeing the outside world. He was only released when his case was taken on by Ansar Burney, Advocate.

Such is the prison system in Pakistan, where the extreme lack of care and responsibility has resulted in many similar cases.

Prisoners (including children) are kept in prisons for several years awaiting trial; and in many instances due to administrative negligence – such as instances where prisoners who have served their entire sentencing are forced to spend several more years because no one has bothered to release them.

In 1990, the Ansar Burney Trust located nine children who had been held in a “Remand Home” in Karachi without any record of their crime. After an investigation by the Trust, it was discovered that the children (aged 3 to 5 when arrested) were those who were picked up by the police because they were lost and were then housed in the Remand Home detention center while their families were to be located. However, no such attempts were made and the children were forced to spend up to 9 years in detention only to be released when they were discovered by Ansar Burney, Advocate while visiting the center.

Children who are arrested on accusations of petty crimes are very often held for several months without trial and in some instances are picked up without any notifications to their parents or relatives. They are given no access to bail or provided any legal representation to which they are legally entitled.

Children who have been arrested for suspicion of serious crimes such as murder are in many instances held for several years in prison awaiting trial. They are treated as adults in their sentencing, without any consideration of their age and their inability to distinguish right from wrong. They are tied with chains in custody and when being transported to courts. Some are sentenced to death.

All these children then spend years of their lives in miserable conditions in cells filled with the stench of human feces - eating unhealthy and unhygienic food and being forced to do labor. They are provided inadequate educational, recreational or even living facilities due to which most prisoners sleep on concrete floors. Many (boys and girls) are held with adult prisoners in detention cells.

Girls are frequently kept confined in prison and police station cells without any female staff or relatives present. In some lock-ups the girls are kept with male prisoners due to the lack of separate detention facilities. This has resulted in many incidents of sexual abuse on women and girls in police custody.

According to Ansar Burney Trust estimates, the vast majority of children in custody in Pakistan are innocent; yet they are forced to suffer for years of their lives due to corrupt practices of police and an overstretched judicial system.

Just as adult prisoners, children are severely beaten and tortured in custody. In May of 1998, Ghulam Jilliani, a thirteen year old boy died due to injuries he suffered in police custody. He had been arrested on suspicion of theft.

Since there is no independent body to which such abuses can be reported, many incidents go unreported and unpunished. The Ansar Burney Trust, for this reason, monitors many prisons and detentions centers in Pakistan and our teams of lawyers visit many such locations to interview the children held. Something we believe has led to the reduction of child abuse in custody.

Pakistan is also one of a few countries that are known to have executed juvenile prisoners. Though many on death row do have their sentencing lowered on appeal, they still suffer the psychological trauma of the thought of being executed.

In the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan that are governed by the Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) of 1901, close relatives of outlaws can be arrested and imprisoned in their place. These relatives in many cases include children as young as 2 years old who are sentenced for no wrong doing of their own.

The vast majority of children who are imprisoned in Pakistan originate from the poorest sectors of society. These children and their families lack the education and financial resources to have the child released or defended in court. The children come from such poor families that if they even attempt to support their child through the legal system, they would fall into abject poverty.

Surety for bail is sometimes set so high that it is out of reach of the majority of families, resulting in children spending months, even years behind bars while their trial continues. The parents who may be financially better off report police attempts to extort bribes in exchange for the release of the child.

The Ansar Burney Trust over the years has fought for rights and release of such children. Our staff visit detention centers all over the country and provide free legal services to the children and their families. We also arrange through donations, better facilities for children in prisons and arrange functions, parties and gifts on special occasions.

In July 2000, a better legal system was hoped for children when Pakistan introduced the “Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO)” for the protection of children who come into conflict with the law. Amongst other things, it defined the age of a child as someone under the age of 18, it set out guidelines for granting of bails, for the establishment of special juvenile courts, set out guidelines for the arrest and legal representation for children and it prohibited certain forms of cruel treatment and the death penalty on children. Though not a perfect legislation, it did offer many benefits that the Ansar Burney Trust had been lobbying the different governments for over two decades.

But once again, the rights of children in Pakistan suffered a major setback when in December 2004 a Lahore High Court judgement revoked the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance (JJSO), because it found it to be “impractical”, “unreasonable” and “unconstitutional”. Juvenile courts that were set up under the JJSO were to be abolished and children were now to be tried once again under the same system as adults.

The Ansar Burney Trust continues to work for the protection of children with every mean at our disposal.