THE juvenile justice system should not just be about punishing crime; it should also concentrate on rehabilitating young offenders.

This was the message put forth by singer Shehzad Roy — who is also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime — while visiting detained juveniles at Karachi’s Youth Offenders Industrial School on Tuesday.

Stressing the importance of rehabilitation for juvenile detainees, Mr Roy paid bail for six offenders who could not afford the amount.

While Mr Roy’s noble gesture has given these young men a new lease of life, it has also exposed the state’s disregard for the all-important notions of juvenile justice.

Despite the watertight provisions of the Juvenile Justice System Ordinance, 2000, young offenders often face the same punishments meted out to adult offenders because of the fundamental weaknesses in the juvenile justice system.

These include inadequate legislative protections, scant birth-registration mechanisms (that prove age) and the absence of age-determination protocols (when juvenile cases are presented in court).

Alarmingly, lax implementation of the law has resulted in the state sanctioning the execution of at least six juveniles.

Even the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in its 2016 remarks on Pakistan’s fifth periodic report was “seriously alarmed at the reports of execution of several individuals for offences committed while under the age of 18 years”.

More disturbingly, the Anti-Terrorism Act has the powers to override the JJSO when the matter relates to a terrorism-related crime.

Although the JJSO prohibits the preventive detention of children below 15, under the ATA security forces can apprehend, detain and try juveniles in anti-terrorism courts.

The state is reminded that there are different processes to deal with juvenile and adult offenders, and that the absence of special juvenile courts is a travesty of justice.

Only civilised societies recognise that reforming young offenders will benefit not only them but also communities by making them safe from crime.

Lengthy prison terms only generate persistent offenders.

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2017