U.S. Military Treatment of Juvenile Detainees Undergoes International Scrutiny
When the U.S. ratified the international treaty on the rights of children in armed conflict in 2002, it committed to protecting children under 18 from military recruitment and deployment to war and guaranteeing basic protections to former child soldiers, including those in U.S. military custody. Formally known as the (OPAC), the treaty requires ratifying nations to submit periodic reports on the progress they have made to implement their treaty obligations to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, a body of independent human rights experts charged with monitoring countries’ compliance with the treaty. The U.S. government’s latest will be reviewed by the Committee in January 2013. The to be discussed during this review, which was adopted by the Committee on July 3, raises serious concerns regarding U.S. compliance with the Protocol and provides an opportunity for the United States to provide transparency and accountability for its treatment of juveniles in military custody.
The Committee requested that the U.S. provide detailed information regarding the number of juveniles detained by U.S. military forces, their treatment in detention, reasons for their detention, and the physical and psychological recovery assistance available to them. As of 2008, the most recent year for which public data is available, juveniles had been detained in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay since 2001. Responding to an ACLU request for updated figures in February 2010, the Department of Defense stated that fewer than five juveniles remained in U.S. military custody in Iraq and Afghanistan at that time. But we have insufficient information about measures the U.S. has taken to rehabilitate or reintegrate the children it has detained, or the remedies provided to children who suffered harm in U.S. custody. Indeed, although the U.S. maintains that, “in detaining juvenile combatants, the United States seeks to restore some hope for their future and to prepare them for reintegration into society,” that the U.S. has failed to provide rehabilitation or reintegration assistance to former juvenile detainees as mandated by the Protocol, let alone remedies for children subjected to abuse and wrongful detention.
Jan Sher Khan is just one of the many children whose lives have been damaged by the U.S. failure to adhere to international human rights standards for children detained in armed conflict. Khan, now 24, was detained for six years at Bagram without ever being charged with a crime. According to a , he was repeatedly beaten while in U.S. custody, and as a result has suffered from frequent headaches, mood swings, and the stigma of being labeled a “terrorist,” which he fears will make it nearly impossible for him to rebuild his life, find a job, get married and start a family. “Sometimes I feel like I’m still in prison,” he told Reuters. Another former juvenile detainee, Kamil Shah, who was 16 when he was captured and was held in Bagram for five years without charge, said of his detention: “I was innocent. I lost my education. I lost everything.”
The prolonged detention, often without charge or trial, and ill treatment of juveniles by the U.S. military extends from the mountains of Afghanistan to the shores of Guantanamo, where Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen and former child soldier who was detained in 2002 at the age of 15 and was convicted by a military commission, continues to linger in a legal limbo. Although the Canadian and U.S. governments for Khadr’s repatriation to Canada provided he served one more year at Guantanamo, the Canadian government has yet to request the transfer of Khadr into Canadian custody. Canadian Senator Romeo Dallaire recently circulated an to bring Khadr to Canada, which has garnered significant public support. Khadr is the youngest prisoner still detained at the naval base. Friday marks the fateful ten year anniversary of his .
Mohammed Jawad, another former child soldier and ACLU client was illegally held at Guantanamo for almost seven years. He was released in August 2009, after a federal court found that the government had no credible evidence to justify his detention. Jawad’s mistreatment during detention, as well as an assessment of the U.S. government’s failure to adequately respond to allegations of detainee abuse, is chronicled in a July 2011 article written by his military defense lawyer. The Committee is seeking information regarding allegations of torture and ill-treatment of Khadr and Jawad, as well as what remedies were provided to Jawad once he was released.
The U.S. reply to the Committee’s list of issues is due on November 16. For the sake of Khan, Khadr, Jawad and the other children who have been traumatized by U.S. detention, we hope the United States will fully answer the Committee’s questions, and take immediate, meaningful action to bring its policies and practices into compliance with the Protocol.
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
Free Speech
National Security
ACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok BanACLU and Partners Urge Supreme Court to Block TikTok Ban
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Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Religious Liberty
ACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter IslamophobiaACLU Statement on New White House Strategy to Counter Islamophobia
WASHINGTON – The Biden administration today released the first-ever national strategy to counter Islamophobia and related forms of bias and discrimination, including hate against Arab, Sikh, and South Asian Americans. In advance of the strategy, American Civil Liberties Union and its partners had urged the administration to overhaul government programs that reflect anti-Muslim discrimination. In particular, we have called for urgent action to constrain governmental agencies from continuing to exercise their authorities and technology to wrongly surveil and investigate, watchlist, and question and detain Muslims at the border, as well as deny immigration benefits to people from Muslim-majority countries. While the White House raised expectations that many of these issues would be addressed, the final strategy ended up falling far short. The following is a statement from Hina Shamsi, director of the ACLU’s National Security Project: “While this strategy acknowledges discrimination and its harms, it does little to end them and is a squandered opportunity. For decades, American officials have invoked national security to pass laws and implement programs that disproportionately harm Muslims and people perceived to be Muslim. A serious anti-discrimination strategy would concretely address multiple bias-infused government practices that deny our communities equal participation in civic life and our democracy, like federal watchlisting, surveillance, and investigation. We’re profoundly frustrated that the administration didn’t take even the basic, overdue step of recognizing that anti-Muslim discrimination is uniquely normalized and embedded in government policies.” -
VirginiaDec 2024
National Security
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Our client, Nizar Trabelsi, is in the United States against his will. The federal government brought him here from Belgium more than a decade ago and charged him with terrorism-related crimes. At trial, the government’s case failed: a federal jury found Mr. Trabelsi not guilty. But instead of allowing Mr. Trabelsi to return to Belgium after his acquittal, the United States placed him in highly restrictive immigration detention and began an ongoing effort to force him to Tunisia, where he was born and where he will very likely be tortured. Mr. Trabelsi’s detention violates the Constitution, immigration law, and the extradition treaty between the United States and Belgium. Through this lawsuit, he seeks to return to Belgium, and he demands an immediate improvement of his detention conditions. -
Press ReleaseDec 2024
National Security
Immigrants' Rights
Federal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is UnlawfulFederal Judge Rejects Acquitted Man’s Argument That His Immigration Detention Is Unlawful
ALEXANDRIA, Va. — This week, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia ruled that the court does not have jurisdiction to decide whether the government can continue to detain Nizar Trabelsi, a Tunisian national who was brought to the United States against his will for prosecution and was cleared of all charges last year. The ruling means the United States will be able to continue to detain Mr. Trabelsi while it attempts to deport him to Tunisia, where he was born and where, as an immigration judge ruled earlier this year, he will likely face torture. The court also concluded that even if it did have jurisdiction over Mr. Trabelsi’s case, his claims challenging the government’s detention of him would fail. “Reviewing claims that the government is holding someone unlawfully is at the core of the judicial function, and we’re heartbroken for our client that the court got this so wrong,” said Brett Max Kaufman, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Center for Democracy. “The government’s arguments in defense of Mr. Trabelsi’s detention makes a hash of the Constitution, immigration laws, and its own extradition treaty.” In 2013, the United States forcibly extradited Mr. Trabelsi from Belgium to face criminal charges in the United States. In July 2023, after almost 10 years of highly restrictive pretrial detention, a federal jury cleared Mr. Trabelsi of all charges. But instead of releasing Mr. Trabelsi or returning him to Belgium, the U.S. transferred him to immigration detention, wrongly treating him as an applicant for admission and placing him in the deportation process. Over the years, the Belgian government has issued multiple formal diplomatic requests asking the U.S. to facilitate his return, but the U.S. has refused to send him back. Mr. Trabelsi filed a lawsuit challenging the government's authority to detain him. He also sought immediate improvements to his detention conditions. Those claims were not part of the court’s ruling today, and will continue to be litigated on a separate track. “Mr. Trabelsi only wants to return to Belgium after being illegally extradited to the United States, held for ten years, and then acquitted by a jury of any crimes,” said Nicole Hallett, clinical professor of law and director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School. “He cannot be held indefinitely and we will continue to fight to make sure that justice ultimately prevails.” Mr. Trabelsi is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union, the University of Chicago Law School’s Immigrants’ Rights Clinic, the ACLU of Virginia, and Professor Jonathan Hafetz of Seton Hall Law School. The complaint in Trabelsi v. Crawford was filed against Jeffrey Crawford, warden of the Farmville Detention Center where Mr. Trabelsi is being held; Liana Castano, ICE field office director for the Washington Field Office; Alejandro Mayorkas, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security; and Merrick Garland, U.S. attorney general.