Rehana Rossouw
Shocking information about children in prisons in the Western and Northern Cape emerged this week.
Julia Sloth-Nielsen of the Community Law Centre at the University of the Western Cape visited Kimberley Prison and found most of the children there were not being held for serious crimes. In terms of the law, they should not have been held in prison.
There is no reformatory in Kimberley and three children in the prison were waiting to be transferred to a facility in Cape Town, hundreds of kilometres away from their families.
“A 16-year-old girl awaiting transfer to a reformatory was brought to the prison at the request of her mother. The reason for the request was that the girl had allegedly been raped by a policeman while in police custody. The matter is being investigated by the local Child Protection Unit,” Sloth-Nielsen said.
She said not a single child had been visited by a lawyer while being held in the prison, and some had reported that they had not seen a social worker or probabtion officer before being sent to prison.
At the Kimberley police cells, she found 10 children, two of whom would next appear in court on October 28. There were no recreational or educational facilities available.
Amendments to the Correctional Services Act in May stipulate that juvenile court cases cannot be postponed for more than 14 days. But Sloth-Nielsen found they often were, with magistrates making arrangements for children to be brought to court every 14 days without their dockets. “It is somewhat cynical to postpone a case for three months, with informal arrangements to bring the child back to court for a pro forma appearance.”
Another Community Law Centre researcher, Nomfundo Ntloko, visited Pollsmoor prison in the Western Cape this month and found 86 juveniles in detention. They were locked in their cells from 3.30pm until 8.30am. There was only one TV set for juveniles, which circulated from cell to cell.
Disturbingly, many of the children were aware of prison gangs and some had gang tattoos on their hands. “One of the boys we spoke to had carved a tattoo on his hand and the wound had only just started healing. The boy was 14 years old,” said Ntloko.
The children complained of a gang which encouraged sodomy, and some said they had witnessed a boy being raped two weeks before Ntloko’s visit.
Minister of Correctional Services Sipo Mzimela has accused the Department of Welfare of “dumping” children in prisons to get them out of the way. He discovered recently that 62% of the 398 children awaiting trial in prison should not be there because they were not accused of committing serious crimes.
Welfare Minister Geraldine Fraser-Moleketi has responded by announcing that secure accommodation for children awaiting trial will be available from November in Gauteng, Northern Province and Mpumalanga.
The Department of Justice has been accused of not interpreting the Act correctly and allowing magistrates to keep awaiting- trial juveniles in prisons for lengthy periods.