LARKANA, Feb 28: The Sindh home department has declared portions of the Central Prison Sukkur and Special Prison for Women Larkana as industrial schools for young offenders.

Iqbal Ahmed Detho,national manager (juvenile justice) of Society for the Protection of Rights of the Child (SPARC), told Dawn on phone on Thursday that the decision had been taken in pursuance of the letters of the Sindh IG Prison written on Jan 24, 2011, and Oct, 21, 2011.

The order was signed by Muhammed Anwar Malik, section officer (prisons-I), and issued on Feb 20, 2013, which, according to Iqbal Detho, was received by the office of SPARC on Feb 28, 2013. It was a long-standing demand of the society, he said.

Welcoming this as a step forward and commendable, Mr Detho asked the home department and IG Prison office as to under which law those young offenders schools in Sindh were operating in Karachi and Hyderabad and now the latest two notified in Sukkur and Larkana.

According to him, Sindh Children Act-1955, Section 25 and Section 25(3), says about establishment and certification of such schools that the provincial government may establish an association or society in any local area for the after-care of youthful offenders. He said that under these rules, the supervisory staff for these juvenile jails should not wear uniform and they (staff) were not transferable.

Another legislation, Sindh Borstal Schools Act-1955, existed in statue books, but not a single institution had been made under this law, he said, adding that the administration of such schools was run under Prison Rules 1978.

The SPARC called upon the prison authorities not to keep male adult prisoners in barracks near young offenders in Larkana.