Right to Privacy and Publicity of Name of Juvenile
The child’s privacy should be respected from the point of
arrest until the trial is completed, and the name of the juvenile
shall not be published by any means, and no information
likely to reveal the identity of the juvenile should be released. 46
However, this was not strictly followed. In one case, parents of
a 16-year-old child arrested in Mabvuku learnt of the arrest of
her child on national television, when they identified her child
as part of a group of prisoners being transported to court by
the ZPCS.
3.3
Conclusion
The majority of children were arrested in group arrests, or
while going about on the streets. Upon arrest, they were
bundled with adults, and were detained in police cells,
including at the CID Law and Order section of the Harare
Central Police Station. This indiscriminate pre-trial detention
was at odds with section 84 of the Children’s Act [Chapter
5:06], which provides for the circumstances in which a child
can be detained pre-trial. Some children were over-detained,
beyond the stipulated 48 hours, and on a few occasions,
lawyers were hindered from accessing children in police
detention. Children were assaulted both by members of the
military and the polices forces. The privacy of detained
children was not fully ensured, as evidenced by the showing
on national television the face of a child in detention. All in all,
international and national norms and standards of child
justice were violated in the manner in which arrests were
effected and the children were treated once arrested. There
was a conspicuously disturbing trend in the effected arrests:
arrests were mostly if not exclusively in CBDs and highdensity areas. This is a deeply structural issue that has been
becoming apparent in skirmishes that have been recorded in
recent times – with the dichotomy between low density and
high-density areas apparent.
46. Article 40(2)(b)(iv) of the UNCRC and section 195 of the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act.
21 ‘Hear them Cry ’ – An Analysis of State Violence Against Children During the January 2019 Protests
Select target paragraph3
Add to table of contents