Children Involved With The System of Juvenile Justice:

An Overview

Juanita K. Wesley and Abou Tall, Association of Female Lawyers(AFELL), UNICEF Liberia

Introduction

Seven years of civil war have left more than 1.4 million Liberian children exposed to violence, hunger, homelessness and hopelessness. The civil war that broke out in 1989 and finally concluded with the successful implementation of the Abuja Accord has had devastating effects on the country. Not only was the country's infrastructure destroyed and masses of people forced to flee from their homes, it also has robbed a generation of children of the right to childhood. It has forced many children to become separated from their families, others to become child soldiers, many others onto the streets, and it has deprived the large majority of their right to go to school. It is estimated that 50,000 children have been killed and 30,000 are unaccompanied, orphaned or abandoned.

The problem of juvenile delinquency, especially in the urban areas of Monrovia, has been exasperated by the war. The population of Monrovia has more than doubled during the last seven years of war. People fleeing the fighting in the country fled to what was considered the safe haven of Monrovia. In consequence, the city has been described as a "mega shelter" filled with hundreds of thousands of displaced people living in camps and dependent on food aid. Many children, whose families are unable to look after them, are forced to hustle on the streets for survival. For many of these children, life on the streets offers them a sense of freedom and independence. It becomes very difficult to get them to go back to live with their families or relatives who often cannot support them.

The most devastating and brutal affront on children has been their recruitment into the armed factions. In Liberia, an estimated 15,000 children were used by the fighting factions for a variety of tasks, including cooking, gathering information, running errands, "manning" checkpoints, guarding prisoners and even to fight in battles. Many of these children suffer huge psychological traumas and have been conditioned to live in fear and terror. Many of these children, having been exposed to violence, are fearless and do not respect the authority of their families or adults in general. During the disarmament and demobilization process many of the former child soldiers were instantly reunified with their parents or families. Often their families were not ready to reintegrate them and in many cases they could not afford to support or even feed them. Many returned to the familiarity of the command structure and life on the streets.

The issue, the problems

Juvenile delinquency is not a new phenomenon in Liberia. It has, though, been severely exasperated by the last seven years of civil war and the devastating impact of that war on the lives of children. Although it is difficult to measure the increase of juvenile delinquents, there can be no doubt that there is a direct correlation, especially in relation to the number of children who directly participated in the conflict.

In Liberia, to tackle the problem of juvenile delinquency the main problems that are being addressed include:

In 1971 Liberia passed a law to establish a juvenile justice system, which created a specific set of laws to apply to children under the age of 18. On 16 June 1997, the Day of the African Child, after intense lobbying and the passage of more than 25 years, the juvenile justice system was finally constituted. A juvenile court has been established and a judge appointed to reside over cases that involve a child.

Before the constitution of juvenile courts, children were charged under the same laws and received the same punishment as adults. In addition, there was and still is no separate detention facilities for children. Children are detained in the same cells as adults.

The Association of Female Lawyers, in collaboration with UNICEF, has worked to address and combat juvenile delinquency and to constitute a juvenile justice system. Through intense efforts to promote awareness of juvenile justice and to lobby the government, juvenile courts were finally constituted in Liberia on 16 June 1997. With continued lobbying and support, it is hoped that the government will now create a separate detention centre and expand the referral system that promotes the rehabilitation and reintegration of juvenile delinquents.

Steps taken

The strategy to promote juvenile justice in Liberia has included two main areas of focus:

1. Prevention.

Though the incidence of juvenile delinquency correlates directly with the country's ability to provide viable alternatives for these children, preventative measures have been severely restricted by the lack of infrastructure and the devastation caused by the seven-year civil conflict. These efforts have mainly focused on awareness and advocacy of children's rights.

The Association of Female Lawyers, with support from UNICEF, actively lobbied for the constitution of the juvenile courts. These efforts focused on creating awareness and discussion amongst government officials, magistrates, law enforcement officers and society at large on juvenile justice and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

A series of advocacy workshops was conducted. The workshops targeted specific groups involved in the justice system, as well as social workers, community leaders and parents. They focused on sensitizing and acquainting them about the relevant legislation on juvenile justice. They aimed at raising awareness of the rights of these children and providing an opportunity to discuss how best to deal with crimes committed by juveniles.

Discussions focused on alternatives to detention for these children, often caught for petty crimes or loitering, so as to offer them some type of immediate assistance. The discussions also looked at the broader issues of how to tackle the longer term reintegration of these children into society and aimed at sensitizing these groups to the trauma and situation of these children and to try to provide practical ways to deal with street children before they commit crimes. The discussions aimed at sensitizing these groups to what juvenile justice is and what these laws would mean for them in their work.

These training workshops were very broad, and, although effective in creating an awareness of the need to constitute the juvenile courts, they now need to be followed up with additional technical training. This ongoing training needs to occur, especially for magistrates, law enforcement officers, prison wardens and other members of the justice system, on the technicalities of the law, on putting the law into practice and on applying it to specific cases. Now that the courts have been constituted, it is time to mould and translate these laws and the operations of the court into workable and effective practices and precedents that protect these children's rights and actively work to rehabilitate them.

2. Rehabilitation

As part of the broader picture, the longer term rehabilitation and reintegration of these children directly correlates with the ability of the Government to prioritize the rehabilitation of basic services. This is obviously a huge undertaking that involves all levels of society. Rehabilitation of the education system, for example, is an undertaking that will obviously affect all Liberian children, but will also impact on the incidence of delinquency and waywardness. A further example is reintegration of internally displaced people, who, if they were able to return to their communities and homes, reestablish themselves and provide for their children, would prevent many children fending for themselves on the streets.

In the immediate future, though, the Association of Female Lawyers, in addition to lobbying for juvenile justice, has endeavored to create a workable rehabilitation system that avoids detention.

In Liberia, the issue of detaining children with adults is an even more serious consideration, when one considers the poor and often inadequate conditions of detention facilities. In addition, it is unacceptable to detain children with hardened criminals, especially in light of the number of ex-fighters who have resorted to crime in the aftermath of the civil war.

This has been acknowledged by the prison wardens and police themselves. For example, through research conducted by the Association of Female Lawyers, children who were caught for petty crimes or loitering were often taken home by law enforcement officers and police. Rather than locking up the children, especially the younger ones, with hardened adult criminals, the police and prison wardens often took the children home for the night and then subsequently made efforts to retrace them with their families. This has placed an enormous financial and emotional strain on them and is not a solution to the problem.

Through the efforts of the Association of Female Lawyers and UNICEF, a referral system is being established in which police and prison wardens will refer the children, especially street children, to night shelters and to organizations for family tracing and reunification. In addition, a referral system has been set up for juvenile delinquents to be sent on to places that offer vocational training and may eventually lead to employment opportunities. The mechanisms, which are still being established, will refer those youth who are not hardened criminals, but street children involved in petty crime, to use facilities and services that are available. Specifically, UNICEF, with funding from USAID, has set up a number of vocational training sites that target war-affected youth. The Support to War Affected Youth Project, that offers vocational skill training, literacy and numeracy, and trauma counselling, is specifically geared for former child soldiers.

Although the courts have only recently been constituted and these efforts are still in the early stages, it is hoped that, by expanding the referral system, many of the juvenile delinquents on the streets of Monrovia will have the opportunity to be rehabilitated. In a country where most of the basic infrastructure has been destroyed, the construction of juvenile detention facilities cannot be a top priority. Alternatives to the detention of these children with adults must be considered. Setting up a court monitored referral system for projects like the War Affected Youth Support Project can provide a cost effective alternative.

Conclusions: future action

The establishment of a juvenile justice system in Liberia has been a very significant step in protecting children's rights under the law. The work of the Association of Female Lawyers and UNICEF to lobby, sensitize and advocate on their behalf has indeed been very significant. The next step now must be to expand the referral system, translate it into the workings and precedents of the juvenile courts and to include the protection of these children on the broader reintegration and rehabilitation agenda in Liberia.

The success of the peace process and the election of a government have provided Liberia the stability to face the impact of the war and to focus on the huge challenges that lay ahead. It is an opportunity for UNICEF and the Association of Female Lawyers to develop and to protect long-term policies of the new government to address the needs of children, especially juvenile delinquents.

The conclusion of the conflict in Liberia has left many former fighters, including child soldiers, on the streets. The task of reintegrating these children by providing viable alternatives, such as affordable schools and employment, is going to take time and huge amounts of capital input. Meanwhile, the number of juvenile delinquent cases is likely to increase. It is important that the justice system work, despite its limited capacity, to protect the rights of juveniles and strive for their rehabilitation rather than their further marginalization.