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- Adopt and implement fully and promptly the proposed new penal code, raising the age of criminal responsibility and establishing community-based alternatives for rehabilitating children in conflict with the law. Ensure that incarceration is a last resort and is imposed for the minimum possible time.
- Establish a child-focused juvenile justice system that will fully and promptly implement international law and standards regarding children in conflict with the law. Ensure that appropriate alternatives to remand in custody and custodial sentences are in place nationwide.
- Investigate and if appropriate prosecute or otherwise sanction persons accused of physically or sexually abusing detained children.
- Immediately release all children held on charges of rebel collaboration andwork with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) to provide them with appropriate services and follow-up care to reintegrate them into their communities.
- Ensure that children accused of crimes are brought promptly to trial.
- Ensure all children brought to trial are given free legal assistance.
- Provide access to primary school education for all children in prison.
- Establish a systemic social welfare mechanism for identifying and responding to children vulnerable to exploitation and abuse, including those who are at risk of coming into conflict with the law.
- Collaborate with the government in reforming the justice and prison systems as proposed by the Secretary General in his August 2006 report on the United Nations Operation in Burundi, including improving operation of the courts and reducing the time spent by detainees in pre-trial detention.
- Provide long-term assistance to the Burundian government in establishing a juvenile justice system, ensuring that UNICEF and/or other technically appropriate United Nations field agencies continue support after the end of the BINUB mandate.
- Ensure that members of the Human Rights Section of BINUB and the BINUB child protection officer continue to actively monitor the treatment of children within the justice system and report their findings publicly.
- UNICEF should support the government and work with civil society to ensure that all children have adequate legal help in all phases of judicial investigations.
- UNICEF should support the government and work with civil society to ensure that children released from prison have necessary support to reintegrate into their communities.
- UNICEF should use its considerable global experience in developing child soldier reintegration programs to support the release from prison of children arrested for being associated with the National Liberation Forces (Forces Nationales pour la Libération, FNL), the immediate removal from demobilization camps of other children associated with the FNL, and their inclusion in age and gender appropriate schemes supporting their reintegration to the community.
Donors should designate specific funds for juvenile justice reform, including:
- to help implement the proposed amendments to the penal code, if adopted.
- to ensure the nationwide availability of adequate alternative measures to remand in custody and custodial sentences for children.
- to ensure legal and other counsel to children in conflict with the law.
- train police and law enforcement personnel on the rights of the child and on the handling of juvenile justice cases.
- improve basic living conditions in all detention facilities where children are held, ensuring separation of minors from adults as required by international standards.
March 2007
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