Bhaktapur, Nepal – between cracked floors and walls that peel a juvenile correction house, Khan, 21, finds refuge in a book of stories. Seventeen others lean around him in the 12 by 16 feet room designed for half of this number of people. The stench of the neighboring toilets is suspended in the air.
Khan, who asked that only his last name be used for fear of reprisals, is accused of having raped someone with whom he said he was in a relationship. Since the age of 16, he lived behind Razor Wire in a place that should have offered a rehabilitation rather than prison alone. But there was no minor when he was sentenced to 19 years old in detention – a punishment that violates a United Nations Convention on Children’s Rights Requirement that minors’ detention is only used as a measure of the last appeal and for the shortest appropriate period. Nepal is signatory to this agreement.
Khan’s sentence was then reduced to 13 years old because he was under the age of 18, but even this condemned shortcut meant that he would live as an adult in a detention center for minors, hosted with children.
Khan’s situation is due to The 2018 Nepal Law concerning childrenThis raised the legal definition of a minor to anyone under the age of 18 – inadvertently of the detention system for minors in Nepal. The Supreme Court of Nepal required a year ago that a tribunal for minors be created, but this has not yet happened.
Sangam Chalise, program coordinator in educational programs for disadvantaged children in Nepal, a non -governmental organization, said that the 2018 change has set up the minors’ holding population.
More than 600 people who have entered the system as a child are now adults, composing almost half of the prisoners in nine juvenile correctional houses. In some cases, 13 -year -old children share a space with 26 -year -old adults, even if the law explicitly prohibits minors’ accommodation with adult prisoners. The nine juvenile installations operate two to four times their planned capacity, reproductive violence, escape attempts and even death.
While global standards concerning minors reform emphasize restorative justice, the Nepal system extends punishment, according to criticism.
At 16, Majhi, who asked that only his first name be used for fear of stigma, entered the detention system because she was found guilty of having killed her grandmother. Now 19 years old, she faces 14 years older in a overcrowded juvenile center. Once aspiring to be an inspector of the police, she now shares expensive neighborhoods with 12 girls and says that she sometimes supports adult prisoners.
“It’s very difficult to live here,” she says.
Officially, the justice system for minors of Nepal prioritizes rehabilitation on punishment, recognizing the incomplete mental development of adolescents and unique needs.
But the regular courts deal with children’s affairs without taking into account the unique circumstances of these children, explains Rabira Bhattarai, lawyer for the legal aid association based in Kathmandu, which mainly takes matters into the rights of the child. And research indicates that around 18% of children in minor detention centers experience suicidal thoughts, in a system where many districts lack psychologists and other experts.
“Society wishes to take revenge and believes in suffering as a punishment, but this approach fundamentally contradicts the principles of child development,” explains Tarak Dhital, expert in childhood rights.
The government quotes the lack of budget as the main obstacle to the repair of the system. But he hopes to establish a tribunal for minors this year, explains Dipak Dhakal, under-secretary at the Ministry of Women, Children and Elderly.
Meanwhile, Khan’s mother, who lives in the family village, told neighbors that her son is studying in the city. It is a fragile fiction to protect your future.
Khan says that if the truth comes out, the inhabitants of his old district will be ruthless.
“The villagers will not see me as the boy who played football in their fields,” he said. “They will label me. I don’t want to be defined by my mistakes. “