By Allahwasayo Khan Phulpoto
Human beings are the only creatures born with a sovereign will, capable of imagining a future and striving to achieve it. To protect this inherent freedom, legal systems place strict limits on the detention of individuals until guilt is proven. Detention, in its legal sense, is an official form of custody intended to be temporary, used only when the administration of justice makes it unavoidable. The law forbids the shackling of an individual’s will before conviction. When the state exercises this power against children, detention takes a different form. Juvenile detention, unlike adult incarceration, was conceived not as punishment but as a protective and rehabilitative measure for minors in conflict with the law. Its purpose is to safeguard a child’s development, not to extinguish it.
In Pakistan, the journey from a juvenile’s arrest to final judgment is governed by the Juvenile Justice System Act 2018 (JJSA 2018). The law seeks to ensure that children are treated differently from adults, placing emphasis on their mental and physical wellbeing rather than the nature of the offence. Yet despite this legal shield, Pakistan’s youth remain trapped in a system that often fails to distinguish between a rehabilitation center and an ordinary prison. Juvenile detention is triggered when a child is accused of an offence under the Pakistan Penal Code or other special laws. Under JJSA 2018, such offences are classified as minor, punishable by up to three years; major, carrying a sentence of three to seven years; and heinous, punishable by death, life imprisonment, or more than seven years.
Although the law stresses that arrest should be a last resort, many juveniles find themselves drawn into the criminal justice system for offences rooted in poverty, such as petty theft or low-level narcotics cases. It is at this point that law and reality collide. Section 4 of the JJSA 2018 requires courts to conclude a juvenile’s trial within four months of taking judicial notice. Bail, moreover, is meant to be granted as a matter of right in both minor and major offences. In practice, however, many juveniles remain detained for more than a year, sometimes even longer, without a final judgment. One of the primary reasons for this prolonged custody is the failure to determine a child’s age in a timely manner.
Section 8 of the Act places the responsibility squarely on the investigating officer to ascertain a suspect’s age at the time of arrest. Where birth certificates or school records are unavailable, the law mandates a medical ossification test. Here, systemic weaknesses are stark. According to UNICEF Pakistan, nearly 18 million children under the age of five remain unregistered, a figure that continues to rise. In the absence of a birth certificate — described by UNICEF as a child’s first legal identity — juveniles are left at the mercy of police discretion. In many cases, minors are deliberately recorded as adults to bypass the protections of the JJSA, resulting in their transfer to adult prisons without immediate medical age determination.
The consequence is devastating. Children are stripped of their rights and thrown into adult jails, effectively treated as criminals before their trials even begin. The shortage of dedicated juvenile courts and limited access to legal aid further compound the problem. When the statutory four-month limit is ignored, detention intended as a corrective measure becomes a trap that stunts development and violates fundamental constitutional rights, including the right to a speedy trial. Although the law requires the presence of a probation officer to safeguard a child’s wellbeing and guide them through the process, these roles remain underfunded and poorly understood.
As a result, many young people face an intimidating legal system alone, without professional support focused on rehabilitation rather than incarceration. Data from the past decade paints a grim picture. Nearly 90% of juveniles in Pakistan are confined as under-trial prisoners, detained without conviction. Most are accused of petty theft, neighborhood disputes or narcotics-related offences. In drug-related cases, juveniles from impoverished backgrounds are often used as low-level intermediaries by adult syndicates. While the real perpetrators remain free, the child endures prolonged detention. The damage caused by incarceration lasting more than a year is deep and often permanent.
(The writer is a third-year LLB student at the University of Greenwich and Denning Law School, Karachi, has keen interests in constitutional law, human rights, and contemporary legal issues, can be reached at editorial@metor-morning.com)
