Government should build more juvenile courts, remand centres -Mrs Mensah

Accra, March 23, GNA - Mrs Georgina Mensah, Acting Manageress of the Boys Remand and Girls Correctional Centre at Osu, has appealed to government to build more juvenile courts for the expeditious trial of cases involving young offenders.

This she said would help reduce the increasing number of juveniles on remand. Mrs Mensah who made the appeal at a day's workshop in Accra, suggested the need for a juvenile remand centre in every region.

The workshop was organised by the Management of Projects Abroad Human-rights

Office (PAHO), a non-governmental organisation, working to create awarene= ss on human rights, monitor vulnerable areas as well as resolve abused cases fo= r the staff of the centre.

It aimed at enhancing the knowledge of the staff on the rights of inmates under their care, and their responsibilities as care-takers.

Personnel drawn from the Juveniles Court in Accra are taking the participants through the Juveniles Justice Act, and other procedures to enhance their work.

She said currently, the Greater Accra Region had only a juveniles' court, which operated only on Thursdays, a situation which had led to a backlog of cases resulting in increasing admission of young offenders into the only remand centre in the region, which also served as shelter for abused children at Osu.

"Worsening the already precarious situation is the admission of you= ng offenders

from the Volta and Eastern regions to our remand home due to lack of simi= lar facilities," she said. Mrs Mensah said some of the juveniles on remand at the centre had overstayed their warrants, while others had also exhausted the constitutionally mandated six months remand period granted for serious offences.

She claimed that the police had shed its responsibility to transport= juveniles on remand to court, thereby putting the centre under strenuous conditions. Mrs Mensah pointed out that since last August; government had not provided feeding grants, which was less than one Ghana cedi per inmate to the centre.

She said the centre was making efforts to ensure that inmates recei= ved the best of care, but added that it was important that cases concerning juveniles wer= e tried expeditiously to prevent them from staying at the remand centres for long= periods. Mrs Mensah said this would ensure that they did not "get contaminat= ed" because

there were others on remand who had been accused of serious crimes. Mr Edward Tetteh, Programme Officer of PAHO said the workshop was organised

because of recent reports that some children at some care-homes and orphanages were

being abused. He said during the year, PAHO would organise similar workshops for other

institutions involved in providing care for underprivileged children.