Mohammad Al-Amin was 14 years old when he was arrested. He had been accused of vandalism and was transferred to a child detention centre in the outskirts of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka. He was terrified. Al-Amin had no idea what the conditions would be in a place that was far from his home. He arrived at a noisy facility, that was crowded with other young boys and girls.
More than 150 kilometres away, in the village of Baniyachang, his mother, Jafura Begum, sat at home and wept. She was fearful of what might happen to her son.
“When Al-Amin was caught I was heartbroken. I wondered how we would make do. I didn’t know where I would find him, how he would deal with it. We didn’t even have the money to go and visit him.”
Al-Amin would go on to spend 9 months in detention. He got to know some of the other detained children, who like him, had waited months and sometimes even years to get their cases resolved in court.
He was eventually released through a virtual court system that had been established by Bangladesh’s Supreme Court, with UNICEF’s support. The virtual court system had been introduced in May 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic had ground regular court proceedings to a halt.