For the first time in the country's history, rules have been made for children in jails under which every child will be provided with a cot or bed along with a table and a chair and will be able to read books before sleeping or resting. 

The Punjab Home Department has issued SOPs with regard to juvenile  jails, which have taken into account the international standards. In preparing the said SOPs, the requirements of the Borstal Act, 1926 and the Criminal Justice System Act, 2018 and the requirements of the international standards have been taken into consideration. Around the world, children are considered the responsibility of the state and in many countries, care is taken to ensure that children have opportunities to grow up in a healthy environment and that children who are imprisoned in prisons for any reason, this aspect in the upbringing of children. Special care should be taken so that they can be seen as good, responsible and law-abiding citizens.

There is a common perception of prison environments in South Asia, particularly Pakistani prisons, as breeding grounds for crime.  The raw criminals who go to these jails also come out matured and in some cases become hardened criminals. Whereas the opposite should be the case and convicted criminals should also feel comfortable in the reformation structure thanks to a good environment.  The Home Department of Punjab has taken the right decision to provide a better environment to the imprisoned children, which will have a positive impact on their personality.  Out of the 900 under-age children currently incarcerated in the Punjab jails, 200 convicted children are in Faisalabad and Bhawalpur borstal jails, while other under-trial under-age children are in various jails of the province.  It is to be expected that in other provinces also, the prisons will be given the status of reformatory by setting new rules for incarcerated minors. It may bementioned here that the aspect of our prisons with the plight of juvenile prisoners, who have nowhere to go and are turned into hardened criminals due to the inhuman environment in jails.

According to recent report by the NCHR, the imprisoned children are the worst victim of the highhanded in jails across the country. As there are no observation centres in the country for juvenile prisoners’ line with the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018, these minor offenders are at the mercy of hardened criminals in Jails. The Human Rights activists attribute to the widespread perils of the incarcerated juveniles to the lack of implementation of  laws within jails.  It is not that laws are node made, the Juvenile Justice System Act, 2018 is very much there but it is not implemented and now are we faced with the situation that 79 out of 82 juveniles are under trial and are living with hardened criminals.  As per report, around thirty juvenile inmates have no access to legal aid which shows the contravention to Section 3(1) of the JJSA, 2018.  The irony is that it is only the children from lower strata of the society who are lodged in jails. A whopping 75% of juvenile inmates hail from poor background and are mostly orphaned. 

Majority of them languish in jails for minor offences and even after getting bail, they remain in jails as there is no one to pay for their sureties, and hence exposed to all sorts of human rights violations at the hands of habitual and hardened criminals within Jail premises.  It is good to note that the National Commissioner on Child Protection recently paid surety bonds for some of the juvenile prisoners but there is still good number of juveniles languishing in jail for minor offences, and they need to be given legal aid and rehabilitated in the society so that they do not turn into hardened criminals. There is an urgent need for arrangements of child protection centres for the under-trial juveniles across the country. It is the duty of both the federal government and the provincial governments to ensure steps to accommodate the children identified in the National Commission inquiry report and provide them due help and legal assistance and rehabilitation. Time has come that the full-fledged Child Protection Bureau which was established for providing protection to such children, should come into action and leads a campaign against the victimization of the children in our society.  One thinks that if the Bureau leads such a campaign, the voices of dissent will become stronger and will create an impact to sensitize on the child labour issue. There has been an alarming increase in torture cases of minor domestic workers, particularly in Punjab province, which is leading on the list of such gruesome incidents. One would request the public to immediately report to the local authorities if any they see a young ones working in or outside someone's home are being abused, tortured and deprived of basic needs of life including the right to education and play. If everyone of us raise our voice against such things, only then will our voice reach where it is necessary to reach and then those people also take action on such incidents of exploitation and abuse of children.

The problem is that often no one knows if a child is being kept as a domestic servant or slave, and it is not easy to know whether the child is well or not. Is he being educated? Along with prison reforms, all kinds of torture should be stopped against children. Time has come to raise our voices against the increasing gruesome incidents of torture and violence against  children across the country. In recent years, it is mainly the domestic workers who are being tortured and even killed with impunity. There is not a single case in which a strong and exemplary punishment has been handed over to the perpetrators of the crime. Last year a brother-sister duo who were working as domestic workers were critically injured in Lahore by their employers. The boy along with his younger brother was engaged as a domestic worker in Lahore and the duo was critically injured by their employers over petty mistakes due to which one of the boys succumbed to his injuries. Question arises in mind as to if the lives of these innocent minor children do not matter to stand up and take a stand for them to fight against violence against children and their abuse by the adults in the society.