Detained Children Left Out of Covid-19 Response Step Up Releases from Jails, Prisons

https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/05/14/detained-children-left-out-covid-19-response

(New York) – Many governments are not addressing the safety of detained children in their Covid-19 response, Human Rights Watch said today. Available data indicates that the virus is spreading rapidly through closed facilities, including jails and prisons.

 

Only about 20 countries are known to have released children from detention facilities in efforts to limit the impact of Covid-19. A global survey of media reports found that, by comparison, adult detainees have been released in at least 79 countries in response to the pandemic. While in Afghanistan, Chad, Indonesia, and South Sudan children have been explicitly included in release orders, in most other countries, they have reportedly been left out.

 

“Child detainees seem to be an afterthought, if they are considered at all, by many governments responding to the Covid-19 crisis,” said Jo Becker, children’s rights advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Governments should act to substantially reduce the number of children in detention facilities.”

 

Detainees are particularly vulnerable to infection due to close proximity and a higher incidence of underlying medical conditions. Access to water, sanitation, and basic medical services is often poor. In many countries, prisons are severely overcrowded.

 

In March, 2020, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Michelle Bachelet, appealed for urgent action to prevent Covid-19 from “rampaging” through places of detention. In the United States, Ohio’s Marion Correctional Institute has one of the highest Covid-19 infection rates in the world – more than 80 percent of the prison’s 2,000 inmates have tested positive for the virus. At a juvenile detention center in the same state, nearly half of the children detained have tested positive.

 

A 2019 global UN study found that on any given day, hundreds of thousands of children are detained in justice systems worldwide, and that as many as a million children are held in police custody each year. The study found that nearly three-quarters are in pretrial detention and have not been convicted of any offense. Many are held for “status” offenses such as truancy, running away from home, disobedience, underage drinking, and consensual sexual activity between teenagers. Studies in the US have concluded that most juvenile offenders could be released without jeopardizing public safety.