For Life, Peace and Justice- By Maisoon Hussein (2005)

 For Life, Peace and Justice 

By 

Maisoon Hussein 

Published by Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER) (2005)

Maisoon Hussein wrote in “For Life, Peace and Justice,” published by Pakistan Institute of Labour Education and Research (PILER), that Nilofer Shahnawaz initiated “Wa’ada Ghar,” an anti-drug program for the rehabilitation of the children at the prison, and she and her husband Shahnawaz Tariq, retired justice of SHC, voluntarily gave up their Sunday mornings to conduct this program, and that the children confided in her like a mother.

https://lib.sindh.org/kitaab/detail/for-life-peace-and-justice

https://kitaab.sindh.org/For_Life_Peace_and_Justice-Maisoon_Hussein-2005-cs.pdf

Nilofer Shahnawaz is mentioned on page number 43, 44, 45, 46, 60, 121, 122, 123 and 329

Please see:

Chapter 7 "Rehabilitating juvenile prisoners", at page 43

Chapter 10 "Corruption can't reform", at page 59

Chapter 22 "Drug menace in juvenile prison", at page 121  

Please visit the Facebook page of Dr. Rashid Ali Shar (https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=27590161350578869&id=100000351262410) in which he says:

Pakistan's juvenile justice system has, for the greater part of its history, produced little worth remembering. Between 1993 and 1999, one judicial officer changed what that institution was and what it could do for the children it held. Her name was Ms. Neelofer Shahnawaz, juvenile cases magistrate (Great Mother of Dr. Shahrukh Shahnawaz, Additional Advocate General Sindh), and her work is preserved in the reporting of journalist Maisoon Hussein in For Life, Peace and Justice (2005). The following is drawn entirely from that book.

• Appointed as Karachi's only juvenile cases magistrate by Justice Nasir Aslam Zahid in 1993, making her the sole judicial officer in Sindh dedicated exclusively to children in conflict with the law. 

• Founded "Wa'ada Ghar" (House of Promise), the first structured anti-drug rehabilitation programme within the Youthful Offenders Industrial School (YOIS), Karachi, enrolling 72 drug-habituated boys as its first cohort. 

• Attended specialist training in Islamabad, jointly conducted by the Colombo Plan Secretariat and the Anti-Narcotic Force, Government of Pakistan, in May 1998, and thereafter adapted the international curriculum to fit the specific social and familial realities of Karachi's juvenile offenders rather than applying it wholesale. 

• Added a literacy component to the rehabilitation programme entirely on her own initiative, so that boys, most of whom were illiterate upon admission, could read a newspaper, write a letter, and perform basic arithmetic upon completion. This was not part of the original curriculum. 

• Organised and personally delivered structured group therapy sessions built on daily pledging, peer accountability, rotating group leadership, and collective problem-solving, drawing on Carl Jung's clinical principle that no condition can be healed until it is first admitted. 

• Arranged a series of participatory talks by external speakers on anger, the purpose of life, the physiological harm of narcotics, dental consequences of drug use, and psychological dependency, insisting that each session invite the boys to speak and share rather than merely receive instruction. 

• Introduced "Open House Day," held twice monthly, in which she sat informally among the inmates and created conditions for free expression, moral reflection, and guided self-examination regarding the duties of the police, the magistrate, the family, and the child himself.

• Introduced physical training (PT) at YOIS specifically to assist boys in drug withdrawal, having recognised that physical exertion and perspiration accelerate the elimination of accumulated toxins from the body. 

• Visited YOIS on every Eid, without institutional requirement, to be present with boys at the moment of their greatest emotional vulnerability, when separation from family is most acutely felt. 

• Gave up her Sunday mornings voluntarily, beyond the terms of her judicial appointment, to conduct the anti-narcotic programme and provide the boys with consistent adult moral presence. 

• Held parents formally accountable in open court, meeting and reprimanding those whose neglect had directly contributed to their children's offending conduct. 

• Issued a formal stern warning to all YOIS security personnel regarding the smuggling of narcotics into the institution by officers on night duty, exercising oversight beyond her strictly judicial mandate. 

• Maintained vigilant personal oversight against staff excesses and abuses within YOIS, a function that the author records ceased entirely upon her transfer.

• Achieved a re-offending rate of only 10 per cent among programme participants, a figure the author presents as remarkable within the context of Pakistan's juvenile justice system.

• Collaborated with Justice Z.A. Channa, Chairman of the Prison Reform Committee, during the period 1994 to 1999, to transform YOIS from a bare penal institution into a functioning reformatory, securing the construction of classrooms, installation of computers, and provision of fans, water coolers, television sets, and wall clocks across all fourteen barracks.

• Generated sufficient public trust and institutional transparency that private philanthropists donated freely to YOIS during her tenure. Those donations ceased upon her departure.

• Advocated formally for the transfer of YOIS from the Home Department to the Social Welfare Directorate, for the replacement of police staff with trained social workers, and for the establishment of a juvenile court in every district of Karachi. 

• Dailey conducted hearings for 30 to 40 children under the age of sixteen at Karachi's sole juvenile court, making her the single judicial point of contact for the entirety of the city's juvenile caseload throughout her tenure.