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In this issue:
A group of human rights groups has published an open letter criticising the decision of the UN Secretary-General (SG) to remove the Saudi Arabia-led coalition fighting in Yemen from his annual blacklist of those who violatechildren’s rights in armed conflict. The decision came after Saudi Arabia and its allies reportedly threatened to pull hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to the UN in retaliation. The coalition was initially included in the list because of information supplied by the UN Monitoring and Reporting Mechanism on the deaths of more than a thousand children killed and injured as a result of aerial attacks in Yemen and dozens of airstrikes on schools and hospitals. Human rights groups assert that the decision sets a damaging precedent and undermines the list’s credibility. “If the Saudi-led coalition wants to be removed from the list, it should stop killing and maiming children and bombing schools and hospitals in Yemen - the violations for which it was listed”. The coalition’s removal from the list, which is annexed to the SG’s 2016 annual report on children and armedconflict, is “pending the conclusions of [a] joint review” of the cases and numbers included in the text.
The SG’s annual report on children and armed conflict highlighted the impact on children of emerging and escalating crises , with particular attention to Yemen where the number of children recruited was five times higher than in 2014 and six times more children were killed and maimed. Meanwhile thousands of children were killed in Syria during the last five years of war. Afghanistan recorded the highest number of child deaths and injuries since the UN started systematically documenting civilian casualties in 2009. In Somalia, a 50 percent increase was registered in the number of recorded violations against children. In South Sudan, children were victims of gruesome violations, particularly during military offensives against opposition forces.
Two years after conflict erupted in eastern Ukraine, human rights abuses continue, especially against those living near the contact line and in territories controlled by armed groups, says a new UN report. Some 9,371people have been killed and 21,532 others have been injured in eastern Ukraine since the conflict began in mid-April 2014.The report explains thatchildren are particularly affected, with a hotline for children, which receives an average of 4,000 calls a month, revealing that more than 40 percent of their calls relate to mental health issues. Access to specialised care in zones controlled by armed groups also remains extremely limited: “Organizations working in the self-proclaimed ‘Donetsk people’s republic’ reported that approximately 62,000 children and adults needed treatment against cancer and that 9,810 of these patients were in a critical condition.” Furthermore, the mortality rate among children with diabetes has increased because of changes in the type of insulin delivered from the Russian Federation compared to that received before the conflict, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Reporting on the arrests, expulsions from school and injuries of students inBurundi last week, UNICEF called for all those involved in the country’s political conflict to respect children’s right to education and protect them from violence. More than 334 students have been expelled from school under the pretext of having defaced textbooks and others were arrested and interrogated for similar reasons. After the incidents, other students from had protested in the streets against the arrests, and two of them had been injured by gunfire.
More than 300 children have been detained arbitrarily detention since the beginning of the crisis in April 2015, the majority in adult prisons where conditions are deplorable. There are more than 25,000 internally displaced people in Burundi, 58 percent of whom are children. A further 260,000 refugees have fled to neighbouring countries, 54 percent of them children. The latest round of violence is rooted in widespread discontent over President Pierre Nkurunziza’s third term in office.
The International Federation for Human Rights and a delegation of the ‘Front National 2016’ from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have alerted the International Criminal Court to the security situation in theNorth Kivu region. Their plea comes following attacks on villages in eastern DRC, particularly in North Kivu and partly in the Ituri province that took place between 28 February and 22 May 2016. The organisations report that at least 76 civilians were killed, including 10 children, and at least 17 were abducted with 12 children among them.
According to the UN the Allied Democratic Forces continue to wage a campaign of terror and sporadic attacks and ambushes against the local population. In addition, Congolese armed forces in the north of the province and recent waves of violence by Mai Mai militias and rebel groups, such as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) and ADF of Uganda, have forced large numbers of people to flee.
Read background information on the conflict in DRC and its impact onchildren.
The International Criminal Court (ICC) announced that it will deliver a sentence in the case The Prosecutor v. Jean-Pierre Bemba Gombo next week. The judges are likely to impose a sentence of imprisonment and a fine or forfeiture of proceeds, property and assets derived directly or indirectly from the crimes. The ICC found former Congolese vice-president Jean-Pierre Bemba guilty on five charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes in March, including the rape of men, women and children, as well as murder and pillage, committed in 2002-2003 in neighbouring Central African Republic. The case was the first before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a war crime and a senior military official whose forces carried out the atrocities – even if he had not directly ordered them to do so.
A special court in Senegal has sentenced former Chadian military ruler Hissene Habre to life in prison after convicting him of torture, war crimes and crimes against humanity, including having raped a woman himself. The trial against Habré, who ruled Chad from 1982 to 1990, began on July 20, 2015 and is the first in the world in which the courts of one country have prosecuted the former ruler of another for alleged human rights crimes. Ninety-three witnesses testified at the trial and presented powerful testimony about torture, rape, sexual slavery, mass executions, and the destruction of entire villages. Habre’s trial underscored the importance of universal jurisdiction, Human Rights Watch said. That principle under international law allows national courts to prosecute the most serious crimes even when committed abroad, by a foreigner, and against foreign victims. Habré’s one-party rule was marked by widespread atrocities, including waves of ethnic cleansing. Files of Habré’s political police, the Direction de la Documentation et de la Sécurité (DDS) reveal the names of 1,208 people who were killed or died in detention, and 12,321 victims of human rights violations.
Armed violence kills around 526,000 people every year, more than three-quarters of whom die in non-conflict settings, according to the Small Arms Survey, the principal source of information on the subject. Children are disproportionately affected: they are killed or injured, discouraged from going to school, displaced or even forced into joining gangs and the sense of insecurity that pervades their communities, can leave permanent scars. Many States are implicated in this violence: a new UN-backed report, the Small Arms Survey’s Trade Update: Transfers and Transparency, found that in 2013, the top exporters of small arms and light weapons – those with annual exports of at least $100 million – were, in descending order, the United States, Italy, Germany, Brazil, Austria, South Korea, Turkey, the Russian Federation, the Czech Republic, Israel, Belgium, Croatia, China, Switzerland, Japan and Spain. In 2013, the eight top importers of small arms and light weapons – those with annual imports of at least $100 million – were, in descending order, the United States, Canada, Germany, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Australia, France and Norway.
The Government of Colombia and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) signed an agreement to separate and reintegratechildren associated with the guerrilla force. As part of the commitment,children under the age of 15 will be released first, following by the separation of all children under 18. Peace talks between the government and FARC to end over five decades of conflict started more than three years ago, leading to significant improvements: between 2013 and 2015, the number of children killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance halved while the number of displaced children dropped by 40 per cent, according to a recent UNICEF report. However, the report, Childhood in the Time of War: Will the children of Colombia know peace at last?, also notes that an estimated 1,000 children were used or recruited by non-statearmed groups during that period, and over 230,000 children were displaced.
In Yemen, children are estimated to make up one-third of those fighting with the Houthi forces, Yemeni government and pro-government forces, and extremist armed groups. The UN documented nearly 850 cases ofchild recruitment in 2015, a five-fold increase over 2014, most of them within the ranks of the Houthi forces. Some children have been enlisted by their families out of poverty with Houthi or pro-government forces in exchange for 1,000 to 2,000 Yemeni Riyal per day (US$7-15). In November 2012, the Houthi leader, Abdul Malik Badr al-Deen al-Houthi,pledged to work toward stopping his group’s use of children in his forces. But Human Rights Watch has observed the Houthis using children as uniformed soldiers and at checkpoints as recently as March 2016. Government forces have also used child soldiers for years even thoughYemeni law sets 18 as the minimum age for official military service.
CASE STUDY: State on trial over killing of Paraguayan child soldier
After a child soldier was shot in the back and killed at a military base in Paraguay his parents spent 16 years asking why there was not a timely or effective investigation by the State. After bringing their case to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights they finally got answers, an apology and changes to the country’s recruitment practices. Read the full case study here.
CRIN’s collection of case studies illustrates different approaches to using the law in children’s rights advocacy. Throughout the world advocates are changing legislation and societies for the better through what is known asstrategic litigation - when a case seeks broader impact than simply bringing justice in a case at hand. Looking at how these efforts work in practice, CRIN is interviewing those involved in cases and looking at their outcomes and the impact they have had. We will highlight both successful cases and less successful ones - which have still had an impact - to allow advocates to learn from previous efforts to challenge children’s rights abuses.
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Closing
A senior UN official has announced his resignation in protest over the UN’s failure to hold senior officials to account. Anders Kompass, who exposed the sexual abuse of children by French and African peacekeepers in Central African Republic, said: “The complete impunity for those who have been found to have, in various degrees, abused their authority, together with the unwillingness of the hierarchy to express any regrets for the way they acted towards me sadly confirms that lack of accountability is entrenched in the United Nations”. Read more about sexual abuse and the UN.
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