The analytical platform CABAR.asia organized an expert meeting on “Juvenile Delinquency in Central Asia: How Effective is the State System of Re-education?”, which was attended by experts from four Central Asian countries.
Juvenile crime is an unpleasant fact that is always concerns societies. In recent years, some Central Asian countries have seen an increase in juvenile crime rates, while others have seen an increase in juvenile cruelty. The CABAR.asia analytical platform, together with experts, tried to understand the causes of this phenomenon and how effective the systems of re-education of juvenile offenders operate in the countries of the region.
The experts – Aina Shormonbekova, president of the human rights organization “International Legal Initiative” from Kazakhstan, Nazgul Turdubekova, director of the public foundation “League of Child Rights Defenders” and Gulnara Sheishekeeva, director of PF “Center of Law” from Kyrgyzstan, Gulchehra Rakhmanova, head of the public foundation “Tashabbusi Hukuki” (Legal Initiative) from Tajikistan, and human rights activist and journalist, Irina Matvienko, founder of the “Do Not Silence. Uz” from Uzbekistan discussed the problem of increasing criminality among children and the methods of re-education that are applied to them in the countries of Central Asia.
Despite certain successes in the implementation of juvenile justice, in general, the system of punishment for juvenile offenders in the countries of Central Asia is not yet focused on the correction and proper re-education of children. It is necessary to introduce systematic reforms in this direction, the experts noted.
Neglect, poverty, lack of social services aimed specifically at children, and many others are the reasons that crime among children and adolescents is not reduced, experts say.
Kazakhstan: Violence among teenagers is on the rise
Kazakhstan has seen a positive trend in the number of juveniles committing criminal offenses over the past five years, according to official statistics, said Aina Shormonbekova, president of the Kazakhstan-based human rights organization International Legal Initiative.
In 2020, 1,873 offenses committed by or involving minors were officially recorded. If we compare with 2016, it is 44% less. At the same time, the recidivism rate is 13.1%. But despite the fact that the total number of offenses is decreasing, but the severity of the offenses themselves has not decreased, she noted.
“The growth of precisely violent crimes among adolescents is exactly the trend that is observed in Kazakhstan as well. In 2020, the number of such and especially grave crimes was 750 cases. Forty percent of the total, compared to what it was. In 2016, for example, it was 603 cases. We still see that the grave and especially grave crimes, their share is growing,” Shormonbekova said.
Meanwhile, the number of children who have been convicted in the last 5 years has increased slightly. In 2020, their number was 396, in 2017 it was 388. 63 people were sentenced to imprisonment, almost 16%, 52 people were sentenced conditionally, 6 people were sentenced to community service, 275 people- 69.4% to other penalties.
Aina Shormonbekova noted that a lot of hooliganism and theft offenses are committed mainly by teenagers aged 16-17. Usually they are high-school or college students. In this regard, for example, in Almaty city, attention was paid to the fact that more educational work with teenagers, with students should be conducted in these educational institutions. Poverty contributes to the growth of juvenile delinquency, said Shormonbekova.
Kazakhstan introduced a juvenile justice system in 2007 and is developing well. Adaptation centers are working well. However, despite the fact that there is only one penal colony for minors, the penitentiary system is still aimed more at repressive measures of punishment than at educating children, said Aina Shormonbekova.
The number of grave and especially grave crimes against minors is not going down. Services for preventing juvenile delinquency are not working effectively enough.
She attributes this to the country’s worsening economic situation and the pandemic.
“More and more problems because of the economic situation in the country. And it is this that is the catalyst for children committing all sorts of crimes. As I said before, most of them have to do with crimes like theft, robbery. What does that tell you? That there is no money, and children also use violence. They commit such crimes in order to acquire this very money. A lot of extortion has gone up in schools,” Shormonbekova said.
Tajikistan – juvenile delinquency is not declining, and the juvenile system is still only working in pilot districts
Tajikistan has had some small successes in juvenile justice, but the courts, prosecutors, lawyers and investigators are not specialized, child-centered, but still generalists, notes Gulchehra Rakhmanova, a national expert in the protection and promotion of child rights from Tajikistan.
Tajikistan was one of the first Central Asian countries to begin a juvenile justice reform process in 2004. A national plan for child justice reform for 2010-15 was adopted, other laws, a law on the protection of children’s rights in 2105, and a children’s ombudsman were adopted.
Despite the fact that on the recommendation of the UN in 2015 the Law on the Protection of the Rights of the Child was adopted, unfortunately, the law does not provide norms related to justice for children.
She said that the country adopted a resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Court, which states that cases against minors should be heard either by the president himself or by judges who have more than 10 years of experience.
“Child justice should have a child-friendly approach. Children should not have to go through the general criminal procedure system, along with adults. The system should not be punitive, but child-friendly. And, accordingly, there should be separate judges, investigators, prosecutors, and lawyers for children. In practice, however, little has changed”.
“There are a lot of changes made to the Criminal Code in Tajikistan. There is a separate paragraph that deals with cases involving minors, many articles where a child commits a crime and goes through the justice system have been humanized. But if we talk about practice, about the general system, I can’t say that it is enshrined in law,”- said Rakhmanova.
Because of the lack of access to civil society organizations it is difficult to carry out monitoring. Nevertheless, from their experience, one can conclude that juvenile cases are often handled by newly appointed judges who have no experience working with children. The situation is the same with prosecutors, investigators, and lawyers. The situation is even worse with child psychologists and social workers, according to Rakhmanova.
“Sometimes it even happens that prosecutors do not always know the approaches when it comes to children. Investigators are exactly the same situation, they (children) do not exist. And the law does not regulate them in any way and they are not allocated. And we, non-governmental organizations, have to train all the investigators in a row, which is not effective … Lawyers, again, also do not exist. We have to train everybody in a row. But we understand that not all lawyers are involved in these cases. I believe that the panel on cases involving children should be separate. And there must be attorneys who are willing to work with children. Sometimes they are appointed, they go and participate in these cases,”- she said.
Rakhmanova informs that in 2009, five pilot districts of the Republic started piloting alternative measures of punishment for children. And positive results have been observed there.
“And so today it’s 2022, and we’re still at the piloting level. And will we expand this system?” the expert from Tajikistan wondered.
Kyrgyzstan makes positive steps in juvenile justice
Civic activists working with children in Kyrgyzstan described positive changes in juvenile justice for juvenile offenders. Kyrgyzstan is introducing a favorable environment for the investigation of juveniles in conflict with the law.
Nazgul Turdubekova, the head of the public foundation “League of Child Rights Defenders” told that since 2012 in Kyrgyzstan, the Children’s Code, which includes all norms and legislation, was adopted, which helps professionals to navigate in assisting children in difficult situations.
Civil organizations in Kyrgyzstan are very active in promoting measures to protect the rights of children.
“Thanks to the active position of civil society, we have reduced the number of children both in pre-trial detention facilities and in the colony. We have 15 children in the colony, 15 children in the pre-trial detention facility, in total 25-30 people for the whole country. Of course it is our dream that not a single child is kept there. But earlier we had more than 200 children. And the fact that we were able to ensure that only 15 children were in the colony in the republic is a good indicator,” said Nazgul Turdubekova.
At the moment a new version of the Children’s Code, which will further improve the situation of children in contact or in conflict with the law, is being considered in the Parliament of the country, noted the Kyrgyz human rights activists.
Gulnara Sheishekeeva, director of the Public Foundation “Center of Law”, shared with the participants of the meeting the positive reforms that are taking place in the country.
“Literally on December 1, 2021 the new Criminal Code and the new Code of Criminal Procedure came into force, and all our proposals have been taken into account,” said Sheishekeeva.
Now in all legislation concerning the rights of the child, including in the Criminal Code and Criminal Procedure Code, the terms previously used, such as – “juvenile”, “underage,” “child under the age of 16,” “child from 14 to 18 years,” etc., are replaced by the term “child” in singular and plural – “children. This was done in accordance with the recommendations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child.
Gulnara Sheishekeeva believes that a very important achievement of the new version of the Children’s Code is the removal of such a concept as “knowing” from more than 20 articles of the Criminal Code, according to which the victims of violence or the child victims and their lawyers had to prove in court that the offender knew that the child was “knowingly” underage.
The new version of the Criminal Procedure Law also introduced important rules such as the term “specialized. Under this, all cases involving children, will now be heard and handled by specialized investigators, specialized prosecutors, specialized judges for children, and specialized counsel for children.
“We have indicated necessarily that it must be an officer who has received specialized training in justice for children. Who is authorized to conduct criminal proceedings for children in conflict with the law, victims and witnesses,” she said.
In addition, such an important rule as child-friendly procedure is now enshrined in law.
“We now have a provision in the CPC to ensure the protection of a child, victim or witness. This means that all officials must and must conduct all investigative activities involving children in a child-friendly room, a specialized investigator for children, using child-friendly procedures. The judge is obliged to conduct activities in criminal proceedings in specially equipped rooms, in accordance with the standards that are defined by the legislation of the Kyrgyz Republic”, – said Sheishekeeva.
All these and other norms on the removal of the child from the criminal justice system will reduce recidivism and all the negative consequences which occur due to incorrect approaches to the upbringing and re-education of children, experts from Kyrgyzstan emphasized.
Nazgul Turdubekova appealed to the President of the Kyrgyz Republic, Sadyr Japarov, to sign the new Children’s Code as soon as possible, it will significantly improve the situation of children in the country.
Uzbekistan: little information available and problems with expunging criminal records of delinquent children
In Uzbekistan, on average, juveniles do not commit too many crimes.
“According to the official statistics we have in the courts, last year there were 399 cases. In 2019 – 497 cases. It’s true that in the first nine months of this year, 707 juvenile cases have already been tried. However, unfortunately, we have almost no information, statistics in the public domain, to consider this phenomenon more deeply,” said Irina Matvienko, human rights activist and journalist, founder of the movement “NeMolchi.uz”.
The main causes of crime are psychological conditions in the family, an unhealthy home atmosphere, and neglect, she said.
“Perhaps some children grow up in single-parent families or without parents, and do not have enough adult supervision. This, of course, greatly affects children. In addition, psychologists note that physical and mental trauma is also reflected in the fact that a child may begin to show aggression to the outside world. Financial hardship also affects this. And a problem familiar to many from the Central Asian countries is migration. We are faced with the fact that parents, sometimes both parents, have to go to work, and leave children in the country in the care of grandparents,” Matvienko said.
As for the current system in Uzbekistan, the juvenile justice system is not yet sufficiently developed. International norms and rules regarding children in conflict with the law recommend removing juveniles from the criminal process and humanizing legislation.
For example, international norms recommend removing the criminal record of children upon reaching the age of majority. But there is no such norm in the legislation of Uzbekistan, which suggests such an approach. The criminal record is removed on general grounds. You have to wait for a certain period, write a petition, and so on.
“The further fate of such children strongly depends on the legislation, on what system will be adopted. Either the child is criminalized, and we all know what a huge stigma there is in the former Soviet Union if a child is convicted. The child will continue to live with that stigma. That’s why there is such a thing as restorative justice. This is an approach based on mediation. Unfortunately, in my opinion, in Uzbekistan, this direction is not developed enough,”- Matvienko said.
Recommendations
The experts talked about the need to implement the experience of advanced countries in the field of juvenile justice and gave a number of recommendations that would be appropriate to implement in order to reduce delinquency among children.
- Introduce a mediation system for juveniles who have committed minor offenses that are not dangerous
- Remove child offenses from the criminal and criminal procedure codes
- Create a friendly atmosphere for children in contact or in conflict with the law
- Introduce more new techniques, methods, program approaches, bring more to the countries of the region and implement them in order to divert children from conflict, from aggression, from violent acts, from delinquency and crime
- Strengthen the prevention of delinquency among children
- To approach problems in a systematic rather than a point-by-point manner
- Introduce a child-friendly atmosphere at investigative and court proceedings for cases involving children everywhere
Full version of the expert meeting: