news.39 The parents saw images of prisoners in prison uniform being transported from Chikurubi Maximum Security Prison to Rotten Row Court, and identified their child among the prisoners in the vehicle. Police officers often obtained statements from children in the absence of their guardians or representatives of the DSW. Beatings and Torture Children were assaulted and beaten by soldiers in residential areas, and by police at the point of arrest. Lawyers representing children engaged with the Officer-in-Charge at the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Law and Order section at Harare Central Police Station who confirmed that children were being properly treated and handled once in cells. It was apparent that the children and other adult detainees were being beaten outside before they got to the police stations, either at the point of arrest or prior to that. There were incidences in which children were assaulted by the military. This especially applied to children around the ages of 16 and 17 years. A child protection NGO received a case in which a child was assaulted by soldiers. The Counselling Services Unit (CSU) and the Zimbabwe Association of Doctors for Human Rights (ZADHR) reported children to be among those brutalised by the military, ranging from 8 to 17-year olds. The Zimbabwe Human Rights Commission (ZHRC) made various home visits across the country and recorded that armed soldiers and police visited peoples’ homes starting the evening of 14 January 2019. They indicated that there were severe and indiscriminate beatings inflicted on men, including boys as young as 11 years, and the perpetrators would then ask the victims to run or arrest them. A child protection NGO received a case in which a child was assaulted by soldiers. The military targeted those who lived in shared residences where there would be different families in one house with more than one male per house. This was confirmed by the ZHRC: “The findings reveal that in the aftermath of the 14th of January 2019 disturbances, armed and uniformed members of the Zimbabwe National Army and the Zimbabwe Republic Police instigated systematic torture. The torture was organized in that they targeted men who stay near areas where barricades had been placed and near areas that were torched by protestors or looted. They also targeted shared homes where they would round up many men in one homestead. The facts gathered from interviews held with communities reveal that the police and the soldiers indiscriminately targeted men in the residential areas merely due to proximity to the areas where barricades had been placed and shopping centres where looting and vandalism had taken place. Ye t i n t e r v i e w s w i t h m o s t stakeholders in the areas that were monitored revealed that those who had put barricades on the road on 14 January 2019 or those who led the looting did not even stay in the areas and most were unknown to the communities. To conclude that every men living close to the looted shops or barricaded roads were involved and to proceed to conduct door to door searches for and arrest them on this basis led to a violation of personal liberty of men who had not been involved in the incidents, including boys below the age of 18 years”.40 39. Information provided by lawyer who represented the child. 40. The Zimbabwe Human Rights NGO Forum also reported in “On the Days of Darkness in Zimbabwe: An Updated Report on the Human Rights Violations Committed between 14 January, 2019 to 5 February, 2019 that” at page 7 that “The crackdown included door to door raids which resulted in the assault and torture of women, children, people with disabilities and the elderly.” See report at http://www.hrforumzim.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Shutdown-Atrocities-Report-6-February-2019.pdf 18 ‘Hear them Cry ’ – An Analysis of State Violence Against Children During the January 2019 Protests