09.2008 - Source: Human Rights Watch

Sudan's 2004 Child Law sets reduced sentences for children age 15 to 18; Sudan's 2005 Interim Constitution allows for death penalty against persons under age 18 (" The Last Holdouts: Ending the Juvenile Death Penalty in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan, and Yemen") [ID 24661]

"Sudan are states parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child; Sudan is also a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights [...].

Sudan's 2004 Child Law sets reduced sentences for children age 15 to 18 who commit capital offenses.

However, this law is not consistent with Sudan's 2005 Interim Constitution, which allows for the death penalty against persons under age 18 in qisas and hadd cases, nor with provisions of the 1991 Penal Code, which allows judges to try as adults children over age 15 who show signs of puberty."

Document(s): Press Release
Report

10.2004 - Source: UK Home Office

One juvenile court exists in Khartoum, two courts in the states of Gadarif and Kosti ("Sudan Country Report - October 2004") [#26961],  [ID 12153]

"5.29 According to the Sudan Organisation Against Torture's SOAT's April 2004 Report on Reformatories in Sudan "There is an active juvenile court [in] Khartoum that has been established as a pilot project in 1999 in Khartoum North….Recently, there are two juveniles' courts in other states (Gadarif and Kosti)." SOAT's 2004 Report stated that "The court applied the code of criminal procedure 1991 in general because the juvenile Welfare act 1983 did not provide special procedures for
Sudan October 2004 handling the cases under it." The report also recorded that "The administrative structure of the court is the same as the structure of ordinary courts in the Sudan.""

Document(s): Report

03.2002 - Source: Sudan Organisation Against Torture

Position of children in reform centres ("Annual Human Rights Report (March 2001 - March 2002)") [#12090],  [ID 12155]

"1. Al Giraif Reform Centre for young offenders (Islahiyat Al Giraif)
Al Giraif Reform Centre houses 14 girls and 80 boys between the ages of 7 and 15. Two of the girls detained have children. Established in the early 1950s, the two main objectives of the centre are stated as being to enhance and promote the spiritual development of children, and to provide vocational training. The former is supposed to be achieved by means of religious teaching given by Christian and Islamic scholars. However, whilst there is a mosque at the centre, there are no facilities for Christian worship and religious teaching is exclusively Islamic, even though 39.7% of children at the institution are Christian.
Although the centre provides vocational training, it does not meet the basic educational rights of the children as set out in Articles 28 and 29 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which state that every child is entitled to compulsory primary education.
Treatment of children
All the supervisors working at the centre are low ranking policemen, with the ‘social care department’ staffed solely by researchers. There are no social workers, doctors, nurses or psychologists employed by the centre to cater for the medical, social or psychological needs of the children housed there.
Military-style parades and inspections take place at the beginning and end of each day as well as before meals, and whipping of children is common as a punishment even for very minor offences. In cases where the individual child who has committed an offence cannot be identified, a collective penalty is applied whereby all the children are subject to punishment.
Children are most commonly made to work on the construction and maintenance of buildings, whilst a few who receive recommendations for behaviour or earn the favour of supervisors, are allowed to work as cleaners or gardeners in the houses of police officers.
This treatment does not meet the demands of Article 40 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child which recognizes “the right of every child alleged as, accused of, or recognized as having infringed the penal law to be treated in a manner consistent with the promotion of the child’s sense of dignity and worth.”
As is evident from the above figures, theft is the most common crime for which children are detained in the Al Giraif centre, indicating towards the likelihood of poor economic circumstances before being taken into the institution. Moreover since 1998, there has been an overall increase in the number of children taken into the reform centre due in large part to the Public Order Act of that year which makes living on the streets a criminal offence punishable under article 16 of the Public Order Law.
The majority of girls in the centre are detained as a result of committing alcohol related offences, and it is thought likely that in these cases, children are used to trade in alcohol in order to obtain profits for adults."

Document(s): Open document