Executing children: this practice should stop

International law prohibits the use of the death penalty for crimes committed by people younger than 18, yet some countries continue to execute child offenders. Countries that execute child offenders are flouting international law.

The 1995 United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, calls for a prohibition of the death penalty for defendants under 18, substituting instead a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. Every nation in the world has ratified that Convention except for the United States and Somalia.

The characteristics associated with childhood include the following: immaturity, impulsiveness, lack of self-control, poor judgment, an under-developed sense of responsibility, a susceptibility to peer pressure, and a vulnerability to the domination or example of elders. There are no concrete boundaries between adulthood and childhood, between responsibility and dependency. For example, one 16-year-old may be incapable of understanding his actions, while a 15-year-old might be fully adult in brain development. Everyone matures at a different pace. Opponents of the juvenile death penalty say that applies all children, citing research showing that the frontal lobe, which controls decision making, often develops fully only late in adolescence. There is common agreement about such changes in the human brain, and a young person’s potential to change, lie behind the global ban on the use of the death penalty for the crimes of children.

Since the beginning of 1994, at least five countries have changed their laws to eliminate the execution of child offenders. Although the vast majority of countries that still practise the death penalty no longer execute child offenders, eight other countries - China, Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Nigeria and the United States - are known to have carried out child executions since 2000 however China and Yemen have recently outlawed the practice. Since 1990, the United States of America executed nine juvenile offenders, more than any other country, and of those nine, Texas executed five. As of August 2000, there are 24 juvenile offenders on death row in Texas. At that time, the minimum age in Texas for death penalty prosecutions was 16. The Supreme Court of the United Sates ruled on February 22, 2005 that the Constitution forbids the execution of killers who were under 18 when they committed their crimes, thereby ending a practice used in 19 states. The executions, the court said, violate the Eighth Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment. It is indeed ironic that a country that views itself as the human rights champion of the world----a country that leads international efforts to ban child labour abuses and to promote child health----nevertheless until a couple years ago, retained the practice of executing juvenile offenders. Child offenders are currently under sentence of death in at least two other countries - the Philippines and Sudan. Philippine law precludes the use of the death penalty against people under 18 at the time of the crime, yet at least seven child offenders are currently under sentence of death. A total of 191 countries-----all but the United States and the collapsed state of Somalia----have ratified the 10-year-old United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which forbids the death penalty against persons under the age of 18.

Some of the children executed in recent years have been really young. For example, Kasongo, a 14-year-old child soldier, was executed in the Congo in January 2000 within half an hour of his trial by a special military court. These courts have since been abolished.

Courts sometimes fail to determine the age of convicted prisoners. An unknown number of such prisoners are under sentence of death in Pakistan, where, in some areas, the law does not exclude children from being executed. In China, although the law has been amended to exclude executing child offenders, it is known that an 18-year-old was executed in January 2003 for a crime he committed when he was 16. There are concerns that attempts to ascertain the age of young offenders are prone to error.

Over 70 child offenders were recently under sentence of death in the USA. The federal government and 16 of the 38 US states whose laws retain the death penalty exclude its use against child offenders. However, three states - Oklahoma, Texas and Virginia - have executed child offenders since 2000.

Iran is a signatory both to the International Convention on Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, both of which explicitly forbid the execution of minors, however, Iranian law allows the death penalty for boys from age 15 and for girls from age 9. Girls and women can be sentenced to hanging either in private, or now more commonly in public, or to stoning to death. Under external pressure, minors now tend to be kept in prison until they are 18 and then have their death sentence carried out. Iman Farrokhi, who was hanged on the 19th of January 2005, was 17 when he was convicted of murder. A young Iranian boy who was less than 18 years old was executed in front of the public in Mashad, east of Iran for the crime of homosexuality.

There are no accurate records of just how many men, women and girls were executed in the first years of the Revolution in Iran. There is a credible list of 14,028 names available and some sources claim figures of several tens of thousands, although these are not substantiated with names. According to a report published by the Organisation of Women Against Execution in Iran, at least 2,000 women were executed between June 1981 and 1990. They have been able to prepare a list containing 1,428 names. 187 of these women were under the age of 18, with 9 girls under the age of 13 and 14. The youngest girl executed was just 10 years old.

Under Revolutionary law, young girls who were sentenced to death could not be executed if they were still virgins. Thus, they were "married off" to Revolutionary Guards and prison officials in temporary marriages and then raped before their execution, to prevent them going to heaven. The Mullahs believed that these women were ungodly and did not deserve paradise in the next life and that if they were deprived of their virginity, it would ensure that they went to hell. Therefore, on the night prior to execution, the condemned girl was injected with a tranquilliser and then raped by her guard(s). After the execution, the religious judge at the prison would write out a marriage certificate and send it to the victim's family along with a box of sweets.

A truly scandalous execution took place on Sunday, August the 15th, 2004, when 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi was hanged in public in the town of Neka. Atefeh was executed for “engaging in acts incompatible with chastity.” In other words, having sex with a man who was not her husband. Atefeh was not represented by a lawyer at her trial and efforts by her family to recruit a lawyer was to no avail. She had to defend herself and told the religious judge, Haji Rezaie, that he should punish the main perpetrators of moral corruption and not the victims. She further enraged the judge by removing some of her clothing (probably just her headscarf) and he accused her of having a “sharp tongue.” It is claimed that he pursued her execution beyond all normal procedures and finally gained the approval of the Supreme Court and the chief of the nation’s “judiciary branch.” Her age was given in official court documents as 22 but her birth certificate has been viewed by reliable sources and shows she really was just 16..At the place of execution in the town’s square, the judge personally put the rope around the girl’s neck and gave the signal to the crane operator to begin her hanging..

Witnesses reported that she begged for mercy and had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the execution truck. She repeatedly shouted, "repentance" which, according to Islamic law, is supposed to grant the accused the right to an immediate stay of execution while an appeal is heard.Judge Haji Rezaie said he was pleased to hang her and is quoted as saying, "Society has to be kept safe from acts against public morality." Her body was left dangling from the crane for some time so people could see what happened to teenagers who committed acts incompatible with chastity.

It should be noted that, according to the Islamic Republic’s penal code, the presence of an attorney for the defense is mandatory regardless of the defendant’s ability to afford one. Nevertheless, Atefeh did not get an attorney, despite the efforts of her father to raise money for one. Atefeh’s boyfriend, who had been arrested as well, received 100 lashes and was afterwards released.

So what was Atefeh’s “crime”? It would seem that it amounted to having sex with her boyfriend. According to judicial records, Atefeh had 5 previous convictions for having sex with unmarried men. For each offence, she had been jailed and flogged. She confided in her friends that she had been abused by the guards in prison.

On the 6th of January 2006, an 18-year-old girl, identified as Nazanin Fatehi, was sentenced to be hanged by an Iranian court for the stabbing to death of one of three men who had tried to rape her and her 16-year-old neice when Nazannin was only 17. Fortunately the death sentence was dropped in January 2007 following an international outcry spearheaded by a Canadian woman who was a former Miss World.

Everyone of these young victims who were hanged in Iran died a painful and humiliating death, there being no effort made to minimise their suffering or make their execution in any way humane. Their hangings were with an American style coiled noose made from modern nylon looped around their necks and the prisoners either stood on a box which is pulled from under them or hoisted into the air by a crane jib as what happened with 16 year old Atefeh Rajabi. Since they were not dropped in which their necks would be broken and thereby rendered unconscious, they were merely hoisted up or alternatively dropped only a few inches and left to slowly strangle to death.

The United Nations has condemned Iran's record on public executions, floggings, arbitrary sentences, torture and discrimination against women, in a resolution in December 2004. Many other international bodies have done the same.

Capital punishment is for the most part, becoming something of the past. One of the reasons for its abolishment in so many countries around the world is because of the fear that innocent persons will be executed. That being as it is, it follows that when countries abolish capital punishment, the concerns we have that children will be executed will be non-existent. As time moves on, society will find a more suitable means of punishing children who commit murder. Until that happens, we must make every effort to stop the execution of children, no matter what crimes they committed.