child rights

After the curfew sirens went off, he played on not realising that they would take him away. Our house is small and is not a place where a child could play.”

As Mohammad’s mother recalls what happened in March 2020, she says, “After the curfew sirens went off, he played on not realising that they would take him away. Our house is small and is not a place where a child could play.”

Twelve-year-old Mohammad was playing with his friends in one of the alleys of Al-Hussein Camp for Palestinian refugees north west of Amman where he lives with his family of six.

The boys spent some time playing away from their homes before the curfew began. Mohammad continued to play after the siren went off. He was arrested according to defence order No. (2), and detained for a week at one of the care homes of the Jordanian Ministry of Social Development until his parents paid the fine.

In March 2020, former Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Omar Razzaz issued Defence Order No. (2), which prohibited people from moving around in the Kingdom starting Saturday, March 21, 2020 until further notice as part of provisions of Defence Law No. (13) of 1992, which was enforced after the World Health Organization declared Covid-19 a global pandemic.

Mohammad’s mother explains that they faced great difficulty in securing the sixty-Dinar fine ($75) since her husband is a daily labourer and was unable to pay the penalty as set by the court.

Mohammad was one of thirty youngsters who were placed in juvenile education and rehabilitation homes in Jordan on charges of violating the defence orders of 2020. According to a report by the National Centre for Human Rights, sixteen other young children like Mohammad were also charged in criminal cases besides violating defence orders.

According to this report, the Juvenile Police Department dealt with hundreds of cases, “in connection with violating the curfew and ban on public movement.” Violators were forced to pay fines ranging from 50-110 Dinars ($70-$155), and those who were not able to pay were placed in juvenile education and rehabilitation homes.

Detention for penalty payment failure

The arrest of young children for violating defence orders continued into the following year as 18 children were arrested in 2021 according to data obtained by the investigator from the Ministry of Social Development.

The spokesman for the Ministry of Social Development, Ashraf Khreis, confirmed that children were detained when parents failed to pay the set fine, and their detention period varied accordingly between one and fifty days. Khreis pointed out that the detention period was set by the court at one day detention for each 10 Dinars of the fine.

The Ministry of Social Development provided the detainees with basic services, such as food and clothing , access to academic rehabilitation services like online learning through the online platform “Darsak”, legal aid, psychological support and other services.

Rights activists believe that when a young person violates the curfew, they must be punished according to the national juvenile laws. A review paper published by the Justice Centre for Legal Aid in May 2020, the Juvenile Law is the framework that should be used in enforcing guarantees or imposing penalties since this is the designated law that must be applied in dealing with young offenders.

Defence order arrests of youths continue in 2021

Sources: The National Centre for Human Rights, Jordan and the Ministry of Social Development

The human right activist pointed out that the Prime Minister did not issue a regulation to suspend the enforcement of the Juvenile Law or its provisions, which renders all its provisions and texts active for that period of time.

Unexpected psychological side effects

The same chain of events happened in Ma’an governorate with Ahmad and Mohammad, 13 and 15 respectively. Both were arrested while they were in front of their house when the curfew started on charges of violating Defence Order No. (2) in March 2020.

Both children were sent to a detention centre, and their parents had to sign pledges and guarantees worth 5,000 Dinars to obtain their release.

The parents of Ahmad and his brother Mohammad explain that their experience has left a bitter and painful memory that will impact them for an unpredictable period of time.

Professor of psychology Doctor Jacob Farah warned that detaining minors in this manner has unexpected psychological consequences that could be accompanied by potentially painful experiences. Those memories and experience depending on the detention duration, location and type of treatment they had received could affect their personality and behaviour in the future.

Distribution of youth detention at educational and rehabilitation centres

Male Female

Amman

Irbid

Zarqa

Source: The National Centre for Human Rights, Jordan

Loopholes in the implementation process

Replying to questions of the investigator, the Ministry of justice confirmed that “The defence orders did not conflict with the application of the Juvenile Law and the restorative justice approach.” The spokesman of the ministry Nizar Al-Kharabsheh (27) added that “Restricting the movement of the child was in line with the principle of doing what is in his best interest given the health-related circumstances at the time.”

Al-Kharabsheh believes that “the strategy adopted by the justice sector in dealing with the crisis resulting from the novel Coronavirus (28)” expanded the application of measures that do not deprive juveniles of their freedom, striving to keep juvenile courts operational, even outside official working hours to prevent delays as per Juvenile Law No. (32) of 2014.

Constitutional law specialist Doctor Seif Al-Juneidi (20 and 21) said that the strategy did not adequately regulate the procedures for dealing with juvenile cases and how to apply the controls and guarantees stated in the Juvenile Law.

According to Al-Juneidi, this strategy was limited to naming two judges and a prosecutors as the competent authority dealing with juvenile cases instead of going further to make available a probation officer, guardianship, and a separation of youth criminal cases from adult ones while always keeping the child’s interest in mind.

The decisions issued by the Ma’an Appeal Court in 2021, cite violations committed during the trials like the need for them to be held in secret (to protect the children’s rights), and the need to have a guardian or probation officer present in addition to presenting the juvenile cases in non-competent courts instead of specialised juvenile courts.

The court (footnotes 23 and 24) sees that “one of the most important guarantees of a fair trial for juveniles is that they should be tried secretly and in the presence of their guardian or probation officer, in line with the provisions of Article (17) of the Juvenile Law and at the risk of nullity in the event that this is not observed.”

Juvenile Law No. (32) of 2014

Article 8
Article 8: Notwithstanding what is stated in any other legislation, a juvenile may not be arrested or placed in any juvenile educational, rehabilitation, or care institution stated in the law, except by a decision issued by the competent judicial authority.

Poor people the most likely victims

Suhad Al-Sukari (38), a lawyer at the Justice Centre for Legal Aid believes that overall, the defence orders don’t have special clauses on how to address juvenile cases during the pandemic, especially when it comes to imposing the curfew and the mobility ban or with regard to imprisonment and imposing fines.

She explained that the Jordanian constitution has established general protections for childhood and for the care of youths in Article VI. Jordan has also ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which has been adopted by a national legislation to become Law (39), and it stipulates that the best interests of the child must be upheld in all decisions taken by the state.

International Convention on the Rights of the Child

Article 2
States Parties shall respect and ensure the rights set forth in the present Convention to each child within their jurisdiction without discrimination of any kind, irrespective of the child’s or his or her parent’s or legal guardian’s race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national, ethnic or social origin, property, disability, birth or other status.

46 children detained in juvenile centres for not paying fines in 2020


Source: The National Centre for Human Rights, Jordan

Al-Sukari pointed out that issuing the defence orders affected the children of economically underprivileged families the most through the imposition of a fine against juveniles for breaking the curfew. She explained that the penalty for an unpaid fine was replaced by a punishment that deprives them of their freedom through imprisonment.

This story was produced under 100 Watts project- supported by the Embassy of Netherlands