CRINMAIL 105:
CRIN at the HRC: Day 4

In this issue:

So this is it. This week has been building to the Annual Day on the Rights of the Child, this year focusing on the right of the child to the highest attainable standard of health. From universal health care to the post-Millennium Development Goals process, it was all discussed today. The day took the form of a morning panel and an afternoon panel of experts discussing, respectively, the challenges facing the full realisation of children’s right to health and the implementation of the right. For a blow by blow account of the day, you can find the summary produced by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) here.

But for CRIN, today was about the children’s rights issues that don’t get enough attention throughout the year.

A day for children’s rights, not those of their parents

A worrying trend we’ve seen throughout the week reared its head again today: a hostility to the rights of children undiluted by those of their parents. Syria set the tone with its hostility to the OHCHR’s report that preceded today’s events, criticising the view that children should be able to access health services without the supervision of their parents, particularly sexual health care and abortion. Bahrain took an even stronger line, accusing the OHCHR of interfering with the “sovereign right of States … to design policies compatible with international law”. Gabon too spoke of the need for families to protect the rights of children, again speaking of parental rights with regards to children.

But as was recognised throughout the day, children are rights holders and their rights are not contingent on those of their parents nor anyone else. Where children are capable of making decisions about their own health care, the Convention on the Rights of the Child recognises their right to do so without the interference or consent of anyone else. Read more here.

Juvenile justice and violence against children

Mental health and detention

Thank goodness adolescents act up, push boundaries and even break the law - society would be very dull and stagnated otherwise. This was the sentiment expressed by Mr Philip Jaffe, Psychology Professor and Director of the Children’s Rights Teaching & Research Unit of IUKB during an interesting and provocative side event organised by Defence for Children National (DCI), the Interagency Panel on Juvenile Justice (IPJJ) and the World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) today.

The detention of children has a significant and negative impact on their mental and physical health: put simply, you cannot enjoy your right to health while you are detained. At the same event, Mr Shekhar Saxena from the WHO Mental Health Programme emphasised the link between children in detention and mental health problems – approximately 7 to 12 per cent of the world’s children not in detention is thought to have mental health problems, and the figure for children in detention is estimated at 60 per cent. But authorities so often fail to make the link, and instead incarcerate children with mental health problems, and often learning disabilities as well, despite the irrevocable evidence of the harm it does to all children. Mr Jaffe followed this by pointing out that all this detention does is exacerbate existing mental health problems because children in detention are isolated, scared, taken out of education and away from a supportive structure to help them grow out of what, in most cases, is simply a phase.

All detention of children is inhuman sentencing

At the same event Ms Veronica Yates, Director of CRIN, emphasised the importance of taking a firm stance against detention of children as a violation of their human rights. She said that any form of detention, even if only for a day, has a significantly detrimental impact on the health of children, and as such is a violation of their right to health. Ms Yates also stressed that life imprisonment, with or without the possibility of parole, along with the death penalty, are not the only forms of detention amounting to an inhuman sentence – corporal punishment, including but not limited to whipping, flogging, caning and amputation, are also torture, cruel and inhuman and degrading treatment.

This was reaffirmed by Mr Jaffe’s example that in some countries and instances a very young child can be detained by police simply for throwing a tantrum. Those few hours in custody are not only disproportionate, but inhuman when you consider the age of the child, the reason for detention and the fact they are subjected to crowded, frightening and often vicious places aggravating any existing violent tendencies in the child (which they will likely otherwise grow out of in most cases).

You can find out more about CRIN’s inhuman sentencing campaign here.

Violence impacts on all children's rights

Today Ms Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children, delivered her annual report to the Human Rights Council. (Postponed from yesterday – the Council is still running a bit behind, and she will complete her dialogue with States and NGOs tomorrow morning from 10am). You can find the report on CRIN’s website here.

During the Annual Day on the Rights of the Child dialogue, Ms Pais remarked that violence against children impacts on their enjoyment of all their human rights. She also made some interesting comments around the medical profession and violence against children when it comes to circumcision.

Update on the complaints mechanism for children’s rights

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the only UN human rights treaty without an active mechanism whereby individuals and groups of individuals can seek justice and remedies for rights violations directly from the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Optional Protocol 3 to the Convention (OP3) will allow this as soon as it comes into force – but we still need a further seven States to ratify. Germany ratified earlier in the week, and we hope that their comments in the Council today urging other States to do so will have an effect. It was also positive to hear Spain’s statement today that it is likely its parliament will ratify OP3 this year.

For more on OP3, visit our campaign page.

Drugs, children and the right to health

The risks that face children who use drugs and the appropriate response to address those risks have been a peripheral feature of this week’s events. Initially raised on Monday by the European Harm Reduction Network (EHRN), the issue of how to treat drug use as a right to health issue was raised again by UNAIDS, who called on this afternoon’s panel to address how States can adopt a health related rather than punitive response.

Asked to comment on the maternal issues regarding children’s right to health, a matter also raided by UNAIDS, Marta Santos Pais seemed disappointed that she hadn’t been asked about the issue. It’s hard not to feel that this was a missed opportunity to address the rights of a group of children who are stigmatised and suffer violence because of their health problems.

Coming up tomorrow

Tomorrow will pick up where it left off today, as the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, Marta Santos Pais, returns to the Council to finish her dialogue with States alongside the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, Najat Maalla M’jid. The Working Group on the use of mercenaries will also present its report to the Council. Look out for our full coverage of all this tomorrow.

Side events:

• “Ending violence against women and girls: youth as agents of change” (1pm, 8 March / Room XXIV)
• “Children’s rights in the information society in Africa” (4pm, 8 March / Room XXII)

IGNORED AT THE HRC: CONFIDENTIALITY

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