GARDEZ - The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) recently facilitated the transfer of close to a dozen youths arrested for various crimes, including for their association with anti-government forces, to a new juvenile centre in the south-eastern city of Gardez.

UNAMA’s Rule of Law Unit facilitated the transfer to the new, better-equipped Juvenile Rehabilitation Centre (JRC) from an old centre where the juveniles were previously lodged.

“UNAMA advocates the provision of better conditions for juveniles in these circumstances, including through the building of a new centre [for them],” said a UNAMA judicial affairs officer, Jean Pascal Obembo. “While it was hard to get the necessary funding for it, JRC officials eventually agreed to look for functional premises with the support and help of the Justice Ministry.”

“The old JRC was very small, the conditions were very bad,” said one of the youths, 16-year-old Qari Saban Noor Raham. “Neither the electricity nor the water supply was stable.”

In addition to improved living conditions in the centres, the UN Mission’s Rule of Law Unit has worked closely with the Ministry of Justice to facilitate the establishment of juvenile courts in the country’s south-eastern region.

The trial of juveniles in adult courts is against Afghan law as well as the Convention of the Rights of the Child that the Afghan government ratified in 1994. The government has also adopted the Juvenile Code that provides juvenile justice system. Today, there are only six juvenile courts in six provinces out of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces.

“UNAMA is trying to persuade the authorities to comply with the Afghan law and the Convention of the Rights of the Child to establish juvenile courts,” Mr. Obembo said. “To comply with Convention of the Rights of Child means that juvenile cases should be adjudicated in juvenile courts and not trialed in adult courts.”

The UN official noted that a lack of resources and capacity are the reasons often cited by the Government for not complying fully with Afghan law and the Convention.

According to the latest report of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on children in armed conflict, a UN-led country task force documented 189 cases of boys detained in juvenile rehabilitation centres by the Afghan authorities in 2012, with a “further unknown number of children” held in detention facilities of the national police and the National Directorate of Security.

“The country task force expressed concern over continuing reports of ill-treatment in those detention facilities, the public display of child detainees in national media and the lack of documentation and follow-up on the release of those children,” said Mr. Ban in the report.

Daily activities provided for the juveniles in the new Gardez location included opportunities for study and vocational training classes.