The Juvenile Justice Unit (JJU) will draft a ‘Juvenile Act’ outlining the actions that can be taken against irresponsible parents.
Spokesperson for the Juvenile Court Zaeema Nasheed said the JJU held a meeting with Prosecutor General’s Office, Police, Department of Gender and Family and the Juvenile court to discuss the draft bill, which it believes will help reduce the number of children becoming involved in crime.
”We have noticed that many children are led to crimes due to a lack of care from their parents,” Zaeema said. ”To reduce the number of children involvement the crimes, we should take action against irresponsible parents.”
”In the Maldives there are no laws on irresponsible parents.” Zaeema added. ”That’s why we face difficulties prosecuting such cases.”
”Sometimes when we go to deliver the chit from the court, the kid’s Mum or Dad says that they do not know where he lives or how to contact him,” she said.
”It is irresponsible for them to not know where their children live.”
She said that according to the law parents should protect children from danger, but that the divorces were leading the children to become isolated join gangs.
”When a couple divorces when they have children, then due to lack of care the child becomes isolated and they start going out to the streets,” she said. ”When they go out like that, they meet the gangs and join them and then they become involved in crime.”
She said that children usually became involved in crimes such as assault and battery, fornication and drug related cases.
Head of Child Section in Health Ministry Saudhath Afeef said that the discussion’s main target was to increase awareness among parents and children.
”With children we can make them understand that they also have responsibilities at their level,” Saudhath said. ”We can make aware parents by running advertisements and by holding awareness programs.”
She said that parents should not leave children on the streets saying that they “are grown up now”.
”The discussion are not finished yet,” Zaeema said. ”We will hold more meetings continuously.”
Deputy Prosecutor General Hussain Shameem did not respond to Minivan News at time of press.
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Ms Zaeema and all those who have come up with this ridiculous idea should first and foremost educate themselves on the family issues in this society, instead of coming to the conclusion that it is divorce and parent's irresponsibility alone that are causing our children to become criminals, turn to drugs and / or join gangs! How about asking yourselves why our children can get access to drugs within a few steps away from every home? Or how about asking yourselves why there are gangs loitering around every corner, trying to recruit more and more gang members? And how about the Ministry responsible for family welfare, actually trying to support parents in disciplining their children instead of screaming about child rights and encouraging children to turn against their parents? Sure there are very irresponsible parents and there are those who abuse their children but Ms Zaeema how about stopping for a minute and just thinking that such a law is going to address the mainstream population of parents who are doing everything that they can to provide the best they can for their kids? You people say that its parent's irresponsibility that encourage kids to go out and get drugs and join gangs, so who is responsible for making sure that there are no ganges in the streets and that there are no drugs in the street! For god's sake why don't you people get off your high horses and for once stop pretending that you know everything about our society and actually look at the underlying picture? Why can't you people who are supposed to promote family welfare see that the parents themselves are victims of the siuation our society is in due to drugs and gangs? The parents in this country have been doing a very good job of bringing up their children as responsible adults, without the help of your so called Act to punish parents. The majority of us parents don't need the Government or a law to tell us that we should love our kids and do the best for them. What we need is the support of the Government and people in your position, to help us deal with drugs and crime in this society! And if you think that punishing parents instead of strict enforcement of law and order and a complete stop to drugs is what is needed for this country to become any better, mark my words and mark the day you propose such an Act to the Parliament......It'll destroy whatever little hope that is left for parents!
i recall going to a consultation on the juvebile bill in 2007. the bill was drafted earlier.
i disagree with mariyam. divorce and irresponsibility of parents are an issue. but there's more to it. for male', and the other islands, the socio-economic realities, in their different forms, and levels, play a much bigger role. and it is a cause for the high divorce rates and the nonchalance of some parents. the act is important. but tackling the root cause will help to decrease the need to use such measures to address issues.
The society as a whole is lacking values and is going out of ethics. One need not attribute to one fact and come to conclusions that so and so is making this change in society. When one is out of ethics, it would be really easy to point out and jump to conclusions (I quite whole heartedly agree with Ms. Mariyam). The society as a whole has to realign its mentality and outlook towards some basic concepts of life. As we are witnessing progress and development, we have come to a stage where we do not really understand or figure out what we are really wanting to achieve in this life. More often we are too pre-occupied with the growing trends and ultra-modern concepts of development. For instance we say we have and enjoy freedom of (speech, expression....blah...blah) but at what cost. In advancing and developing as a society, it is not only the physical developments that should really be considered, we need to have values and morals.... in short "what is the purpose of advancing anti-social elements and values". Take a closer look at yourself, are you of anti-social personality or not?
The law should include actions to be taken against juvenile officers who ignore cases of abuse. Even to cover the police officers who fail to act upon acting against juvenile delinquents. As Mariyam has pointed out why is there no action been taken on reducing drug peddlers gangs being formed and then the burden is placed on the parents. This is none other than a bill being drafted to shift blame. For one thing this would not be enforceable in Maldives just as every other legislature that comes into law. We are a society drifting towards chaos mayhem and where the person with the foulest mouth and most violent will rule.
Ms, Mariyam. Its really people like you who are responsible for all the juveniles we see in our society today. I support the proposal for a law to make parents responsible for their kids.
Walking in the presence of giants here. Cool thinking all anorud!