RIGHTS BEHIND BARS A Study of Prison Conditions In Zimbabwe 2018 detention facility should provide access to a library that is adequately stocked with both instructional and recreational books and periodicals suitable for the juveniles, who should be encouraged and enabled to make full use of it (Rule 41, Beijing Rules).46 Juveniles have the right to receive vocational training in occupations likely to prepare them for future employment and should be permitted to choose the type of work they wish to perform.47 All standards relating to education, vocational training and work seek to ensure that prisoners have somewhere to start when they are released. 4.9. Juveniles deprived of their liberty There are specific guarantees conferred only upon juveniles in detention. These guarantees are specifically enumerated in international and domestic law. In the context of detention, two guarantees specifically stand out and these are the right to be kept separately from detained persons over the age of majority and the right to be kept in conditions, and treated in a manner, that take into account the child’s age. The protection of these rights in international and domestic law is explored below. 4.9.1 The right to be kept separately from detained adult persons International instruments provide for the right of every accused juvenile person to be separated from adults during pre-trial and post conviction detention.48 Under international law, young offenders should be kept separately from adult offenders.49 In line with international human rights instruments and standards, section 81(1)(i) of the Constitution also provides for the child’s right to be kept separately from detained persons over the age of 18 years. Section 63(2)(c) of the Prisons Act also stipulates youth offenders as a group of prisoners that should be kept separate from other categories of offenders. The separation of adult and youth offenders serves as a mandatory precondition for ensuring that youth offenders are later afforded treatment that takes their age, immaturity and vulnerability into account. When carrying out human rights reporting, States parties have the obligation to pay the necessary attention to this mandatory standard and to stipulate what measures have been taken to separate juvenile offenders from adult offenders (HRC GC 21, para 13). The rule that young offenders deprived of liberty should be separated from adults implies that such offenders should not be placed in an adult prison or other facility for adults. As the Committee on the Rights of the Child would have it, ‘[t]here is abundant evidence that the placement of children in adult prisons or jails compromises their basic safety, well-being, and their future ability to remain free of crime and to reintegrate…States parties should establish separate facilities for children deprived of their liberty, which include distinct, child-centred staff, personnel, policies and practices’ (CRC GC 10, para 85). There is sufficient evidence demonstrating that where child offenders are detained in the same facilities with their adult counterparts, the relevant places of institutional confinement serve as schools for crime and 46 47 48 49 20 Rule 40 of the Standard Minimum Rules. See article 28(1)(b) of the CRC and Rules 42 and 43, Beijing Rules. See articles 37(c) of the CRC and 10(2)(b) of the ICCPR. See CRC General Comment 10, para 85 and Rule 8 of the Standard Minimum Rules. EGAP