* News Release Issued by the International Secretariat of Amnesty
International *
8 December 2000
ACT 40/040/2000
"He had a pair of
pliers in his hand. He kept asking where the
mobile phone was. I told him I had not seen it....He got hold
of my
thumb and placed it between the pliers. He pressed it hard
and
crushed my thumb. I do not remember what happened next."
Nine-year-old Firoz, victim of
torture by police in
Bangladesh.
Throughout the world, children are being subjected to
horrific
violence and
abuse, according to a new Amnesty International
report published ahead of Human Rights Day (December 10).
A part of Amnesty International's recently launched
Campaign Against Torture, the report
reveals that: children are
tortured because they are caught up in
wars and
political
conflict; children suspected of criminal activity are most at
risk of torture at the hands of the state; children are often
detained in conditions that pose a threat to their health and
safety, and many
children face being beaten or
sexually abused by
the very adults who are supposed to protect them.
"This abuse continues to be the world's secret shame, a
daily reality ignored by
governments everywhere. Most children
suffer in silence, their
stories never told, their tormentors
never called to account," Amnesty International said.
Entitled Hidden scandal, secret shame, the report says
that torture can have a profound impact on the body and mind of a
developing child. Those who are
tortured repeatedly, or over long
periods of time, are likely to suffer permanent personality
changes. Serious physical trauma may disrupt or distort normal
growth patterns, and cause
permanent weakness or
disability.
"Around the world we see the same patterns of
abuse:
there is little difference between how
police treat children in
China and how they treat them in
Brazil; there is little
difference between conditions of detention in
Paraguay and
Russia; and violence against children in armed conflict is
equally devastating in
Sierra Leone and
Afghanistan."
Police Custody
In some countries beatings are considered a normal consequence of
arrest and some police officers rely on torture as a method of
interrogation. Children have been struck with
fists,
sticks,
chair legs,
gun-butts,
whips,
iron pipes and
electrical cords.
They have suffered
concussion, internal
bleeding,
broken bones,
lost
teeth and
ruptured organs. Children detained by
police have
also been
sexually assaulted; burned with
cigarettes or
electricity; exposed to extremes of
heat and
cold; deprived of
food,
drink or
sleep; or made to
stand,
sit or
hang for long
hours.
Children are entangled in the web of the current conflict
in
Israel and the
Occupied Territories. So far at least 90
Palestinian children have been
killed. Hundreds of
Palestinian
children, as well as some
Israeli children, have been injured.
Palestinian children have often been arrested late at
night or
early in the
morning and
interrogated soon after they reached the
police station. Some were
handcuffed following arrest and during
interrogation, reportedly beaten by police officers,
intimidated
and subjected to extreme
psychological pressure.
At about 2am on 24 October, a dozen Israeli police, armed
with machine guns, came to arrest Bakr Sa'id, a 15 year old boy,
at his home in Kufar Kana. Four armed
police officers went to
where Bakr Sa'id was sleeping and arrested the boy. Bakr Sa'id
was reportedly
interrogated for
several hours in the early
morning by three interrogators in
civilian clothes who shouted
and threatened him. Later in the day he was brought to court, but
his
father was not allowed to
speak to him. Another detainee in
court said he saw a police officer
slap Bakr Sa'id in the face.
Sexual Abuse in Custody
Boys and girls in custody are vulnerable to rape and sexual
abuse, both from state agents and other inmates. Many children
try to hide the fact that they have been
raped, others are simply
too embarrassed or ashamed to talk about it and many cases go
unreported and
unpunished.
N.C.S., a 16-year-old Kurdish girl was detained with her
friend at police headquarters in Iskenderun, Turkey, in March
1999. She was forced to stand
continuously for two days,
prevented from using the
toilet and only given
sour milk to
drink. During the
interrogation she was beaten on the
head,
genitals,
buttocks and
breasts, forced to roll
naked in
water,
suspended by the
arms and hosed with pressurized
cold water. She
was also subjected to a "
virginity test". N.C.S. was sentenced to
a long prison term after being charged with being a member of the
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but typically none of the police
officers have so far been brought to justice.
Street Children
An estimated 100 million children live and work on the streets
where they are particularly vulnerable. Amnesty International
has documented torture and ill-treatment against street children
in many countries, including
Bangladesh,
Brazil,
Colombia,
Guatemala,
India,
Kenya,
Nepal and
Uganda.
Juvenile Detention Centres
Conditions in juvenile detention centres, orphanages and other
institutions can also amount to torture. A class action filed in
February in
South Dakota, USA, alleged that
children held in the
State Training School in
Plankington were forced to lie on their
backs, spread-eagled, on a concrete bed in an isolation cell for
hours at a time, including
overnight. Girls held in this
position had been stripped naked by
male staff, sometimes having
their clothes cut off with
scissors.
Physical abuse is a fact of life for many young
detainees. A former inmate of the Panchito López juvenile
detention centre in Paraguay said: "Life in Panchito is
hard. For
punishments there were
beatings on the soles of the feet or on
the palms of the hands, or kicks in the
stomach. Boys were
stripped
naked and hung upside down on the patio and beaten with
sticks, or else they made you stand on your
hands up against the
wall. You had to stay
still like that for as long as they wanted,
if you fell down they
beat you. They'd
hang you from a pillar or
from the doorway. They
hung me up for three
hours, and all the
guards that passed by hit me. If someone does
something and they
don't
discover who, everyone in the block is
beaten with
sticks."
Armed Conflict
Children are particularly vulnerable in situations of armed
conflict -- as child soldiers, refugees, innocent bystanders.
Many children are tortured simply because they live in an "enemy
zone", or because of the politics, religion or ethnic origin of
their family. Children have
suffered on an unprecedented scale
during the
nine years of
civil war in
Sierra Leone -- thousands
have been killed, mutilated, abducted and forced to fight, or
raped and forced into
sexual slavery.
Many children in
Sierra Leone, themselves
victims, have
been forced to
kill,
mutilate or
rape, often under the influence
of
drugs or
alcohol or through fear. "Komba", now aged 15, was
captured by
rebel forces in 1997. He told AI in June 2000 that
he was among
rebel forces who attacked
Freetown in January 1999:
"My legs were cut with
blades and
cocaine was rubbed in the
wounds. Afterwards, I felt like a big person. I saw the other
people like chickens and rats. I wanted to
kill them."
Amnesty International is calling on governments around
the world to publicly condemn the torture of children whenever it
occurs, investigate all
allegations of
torture, ensure it is
expressly
prohibited in
law and that torturers are brought to
justice. The leaders of
armed opposition groups should also make
clear to their
forces that torture is
unacceptable.
"The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most
widely ratified human rights treaty in the world, but governments
continue to fail to live up to the principles and commitments it
contains. By allowing the violence against children to continue,
we put at risk our future," the
organization said.
Members of the
public can join Amnesty International's
Campaign Against Torture by registering online at
www.stoptorture.org
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