Children of the Tongi Child Development Centre (CDC) : their experiences before detention

The study was conducted at the Child Development Centre (CDC) of Tongi, Gazipur. It tried to find out the factors behind children's coming into conflict with the law and explored their experiences under the custody of police or the law enforcement agencies before their detention in CDC. This was a qualitative study where Case study was applied. It conducted in-depth interviews with a semi-structured interview schedule to collect its primary data. Ethical issues were major concern of the researchers. The findings revealed that most of the children were from lower-middleand lower-class families who were involved in income earning activities after dropping out of educational institutions. Most of them had murder allegations and one had rape charge also and they were arrested by the police for being members of groups. According to the participants, police arrested them based on suspicion. But the police and law enforcers were very harsh towards them and did not treat them as child. None of them had encountered child-friendly probation officer for their counselling when they were in the custody of police or law enforcers. Though many years have passed since its enactment, the provisions of the Children Act 2013 are not still practiced within the justice system. Even some children were placed in central jail with adults when they came in conflict with the law. Police used handcuffs after arresting them, used slangs, forced to confess what they did not commit and to give false statements before court and sometimes threatened to kill. In police station, physical torture such as being subjected to electric shock and beating with stick or strong rope were common to these children. Some of them gathered more bitter experiences when they came under other law enforcement agencies, such as RAB, BGB or DB police. The present study supports that the best interests of the children under police or other law enforcers were not ensured at the initial stage under juvenile justice system according to the existing domestic and international laws, acts and instruments.