One 16-year-old boy who was sentenced to one year in Mandhera prison after allegedly being involved in a street fight described his hearing this way:
They took [around 20] of us to the first floor of the police station—no one of us knew the other. The only person I recognized was the mayor. They called our names and we all said “Present.” They didn’t say anything to us, and the only thing we said was that we were present. They did not make any effort to find out what happened. They then wrote a letter and sent us back to our cells. The next morning there was a truck waiting for us. A policeman was standing next to the truck, calling out names—he was reading our names and our sentences. He called my name and said, “One year.” I was not expecting it—I did not do anything, there was no court, no one asked me what happened—I was just taken by surprise when I heard that I had been sentenced to one year.
One young man who spent eight months in Mandhera prison when he was 15 told Human Rights Watch that he was routinely harassed and beaten by older juvenile detainees:
In prison the harassment by older [juvenile] prisoners was unbearable—I could not handle it. One time a week my parents would come and bring soft drinks and biscuits. When they left and I went back to the cell they would just take all of it by force—clean covers for my mattress, clean clothes, anything my parents brought. Some of my cellmates had done rape, robbery, even murder—some had done these things many times, not just once. There were also some boys even younger than me in the cell. I was old enough to defend myself even if they beat me in the end. But some were 13 or 14 and they suffered more.
(HRW, 2009)
ITS FUKING AFRICA!! 
