City Desk :
There should be a comprehensive child-friendly juvenile justice system in the country to protect the rights of the children who committed different types of crimes for their proper correction, speakers at a participatory discussion here said on Saturday.
They viewed that a legal reform has become an urgent task to bring together all legislations dealing with children in one act in conformity with the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and other international standards.
The observation came at a divisional workshop styled “Probation System in Bangladesh Perspective: Alternative to Imprisonment and Safe Custody” held at Hotel Warishan in Rajshahi.
Bangladesh Legal Aid and Services Trust (BLAST) organized the workshop in association with Community Legal Services Project with the main thrust of devising ways and means on how to ensure a comprehensive child-friendly juvenile justice system in the country.
The discussants termed the adolescents as an important section of the society and said they need special care and positive behaviors from their near and dear ones during their adolescent period.
With BLAST local unit president Advocate Najmus Sadaat in the chair, Senior Jail Superintendent Shafiqul Islam Khan, Deputy Director of Department of Social Services Abdul Mannan, Senior Judicial Magistrates Khandaker ATM Tofayel and Selim Reja and BLAST Assistant Director (Advocacy and Communication) Mahbuba Akter spoke on the occasion as focal persons on the issue.
Hasibul Alam Prodhan, a teacher of Department of Law in Rajshahi University, and BLAST Consultant Advocate Tajul Islam presented two concept papers on Children Act-2013 and its enforcement and Probation system respectively.
Around 50 persons comprising judges, lawyers, jail, probation and social service officials, human rights activists and journalists from different districts under Rajshahi division attended the workshop.
The participants said school and college students should be acquainted with the existing laws relating to the criminal offenses for setting their mindset about how to abide by the laws Many of the teenagers commit different types of crimes, including the major ones, due to lack of knowledge about the existing laws.
Time has come to overcome this problem and protect the young generation from being prosecuted, they added.
In the plenary session, they said continuous capacity building of front line workers such as police, magistrates, judges, probation officers and social workers will be conducted through their training institutes and regular curricula.
