CRINMAIL 114:
In this issue:
Children’s rights were on the agenda at the UN headquarters in New York last week, and this edition of Children’s Rights at the United Nations CRINmail reports on some of the highlights.
We also provide you with summaries of some of the key issues to come out of the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s concluding observations from its 64th session, and give you a heads up on impending deadlines for children’s rights advocacy opportunities.
As always, if you have any feedback or suggestions for this CRINmail, please email [email protected]
Best wishes
The CRIN team
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LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES
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Children’s rights at the General Assembly
The 68th session of the General Assembly is underway in New York and runs until the end of the month. Human rights are reviewed under the Third Committee, where children’s rights were debated last week. Below is a snapshot of some of the key children’s rights issues raised. State delegates also updated the Third Committee on the children’s rights situation in their countries, and you can read a summary of the statements here.
Violence against children
“Progress has been too slow, too uneven and too fragmented to make a genuine breakthrough in the protection of children from violence”, said the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, Marta Santos Pais, as she delivered her annual report to the Third Committee last week. “The risk of violence against children remains present in every setting, including those where children should be safest – in schools, in care and justice institutions and also within the home,” she continued. Read our coverage of her report in last month’s edition.
Kirsten Sandberg, Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child gave her first oral update on the work of the CRC to the GA’s Third Committee on 16 October. She emphasised that while States have made some good efforts to protect and promote children’s rights, “the variations are great and there are some disturbing developments. Violence is still widespread – in the family, in schools, in institutions, as is sexual and other forms of exploitation.”
“Scourge” of armed conflicts
“In many places around the world, the scourge of violent conflict continues to blight the lives of children,” said Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, in her address to the GA’s Third Committee last week in New York. She cited lack of access to education and healthcare, the killing and maiming of children by use of explosive weapons and the arrest and detention of children for security offences without due process, as just some of the issues affecting children in armed conflict.
Also on the topic of armed conflict, in Geneva this week the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) passed a “landmark document” on women and conflict during its 56th session. General Recommendation No 30 gives guidance on how States can ensure women’s rights are protected before, during and after conflicts, including due diligence on non-State actors such as armed groups and private security contractors.
“Women’s experiences are regularly dismissed as irrelevant for predicting conflict, and women’s participation in conflict prevention has historically been low,” said CEDAW Chair Nicole Ameline. “But in reality, there is a strong correlation between an increase in gender-based violence and the outbreak of conflict. No longer is it enough to say that such acts are outside the scope of state responsibility of the Convention.”
Children’s right to be heard- Secretary-General
“In most societies the implementation of the right of the child to express his or her views continues to be challenged by cultural attitudes as well as political and economic barriers”, according to a new report by the UN Secretary-General on the Status of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.
The Secretary-General’s four reports relating to children’s rights were delivered during the Third Committee session by Anthony Lake, UNICEF Executive Director. Among other very important issues, the Secretary General’s reports contain a number of references to children’s right to be heard and their ability to express themselves. The report called “Follow-up to the special session of the General Assembly on children”, says: “In most countries children’s right to be heard has not yet been systematically integrated into the development of public policies and programmes.”
Linking the right to be heard and expression to the right to health, the report on the Status of the CRC goes on to say: “Limited access to information, especially on reproductive health, prevents children and adolescents from making informed decisions affecting their lives. Decisions about medical interventions are frequently made without the involvement or consent of children, particularly children with disabilities.” The Secretary-General then recommends States “ensure the right to information and involvement of children, including children with disabilities, in decisions related to health interventions and sexual and reproductive rights.”
Children’s right to health means more than the bare bones of survival, and access to information and the ability to give informed consent are two necessary elements for children making educated decisions about what happens to their own bodies and minds. For more on children’s right to access information and the right to health, see CRIN’s submission for the 2013 Human Rights Council’s Annual Day on the Rights of the Child.
All of the Secretary-General’s children’s rights reports to the Third Committee, including the two mentioned above and the report on “the girl child” and child protection, can be found here.
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Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 64th session outcomes
The CRC closed its 64th session in Geneva on 4 October and has since issued Concluding Observations to nine States. Click on the links below for the full text, as well as our summaries of some of the key issues raised, including the CRC’s call on China to co-operate with civil society, its deep concerns around the arbitrary detention of girls deemed “at risk of perversity” in Kuwait, and children in solitary confinement in Luxembourg.
Kuwait - Lithuania - Luxembourg - Monaco- Sao Tome & Principe - Tuvalu - Moldova (sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography)- China (also armed conflict)- Paraguay (armed conflict; sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography)
You can also find the alternative reports submitted by NGOs prior to the session here, and click here for further coverage of the 64th session.
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Saudi Arabia snubs UN Security Council
In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia last week rejected its chance to occupy a seat on the UN Security Council, citing the UN's double standards and failures to do its duty on Syria, nuclear weapons and Palestine. Chad, Nigeria, Chile and Lithuania also secured seats and will serve two-year terms starting 1 January 2014. All elections were unopposed, but the States still had to obtain approval from two-thirds of the General Assembly.
Chad's new position has caused human rights groups to call upon the country to improve its human rights record, as it is on the UN's list of the worst States when it comes to children's rights violations in armed conflict. Full story.
Read more about children's rights and the UN Security Council here.
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UPCOMING EVENTS AND ADVOCACY OPPORTUNITIES
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Special Procedures - 2014 appointments. Call for nominations
A host of special procedure mandates are up for grabs next year, and the deadline for nominations and applications is 31 October. Some of the mandates address children's rights exclusively, but even those with a broader mandate have a children's rights angle to their work because all human rights standards also apply to children. You can view the full list, as well as further information on the appointment process, including how to nominate and apply, here.
As part of our efforts to position children’s rights on the broader human rights agenda, CRIN monitors the appointment processes for top UN jobs, including special procedure mandate holders. Click here for more on our transparency campaign.
Upcoming special procedure visits
Benin
Special Rapporteur on the sale of children (28 October to 8 November 2013)
Qatar
Special Rapporteur on migrants (3 - 10 November 2013)
Vietnam
Special Rapporteur on cultural rights (18 - 29 November 2013)
Ghana
Special Rapporteur on slavery (21 - 30 November 2013)
Go to our website for more.
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Calls for submissions
Birth registration
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) is inviting submissions on the subject of birth registration in preparation for an upcoming report. You can find out more here. The deadline is 15 November.
Why is birth registration important?
Birth registration may seem like mere administration, but it is vital for children gaining access to services like education and healthcare. Birth certificates give people the ability to prove who they are so they can get passports, driving licences and other documents that open doors to the enjoyment of other human rights. Without it, people can be effectively banished and unable to attend school or gain employment because they cannot prove their age and identity.
Countries that have systemic lack of birth registration also tend to have severe problems in juvenile justice when the onus is on a child accused of a crime to prove they are a child (and therefore not subjected to the criminal justice system, or treated differently by it). For instance, in Yemen it is believed that children are being executed, despite laws in the country prohibiting the use of the death penalty against children. Click here for a report on creating a non-violent juvenile justice system.
Early marriage
The OHCHR will also be submitting a report on child, early, and forced marriage to the Human Rights Council at its 26th Session in June 2014. It is inviting civil society to send any relevant information for the report’s preparation. Click here for more details on how. The deadline for submissions is 15 December.
In particular, the OHCHR would like views and information on how States are implementing their obligations under international law, steps they have taken to prohibit these practices and recommendations of good practice.
For more on early marriage and other harmful practices based on tradition, culture, religion or superstition, see this report by the International NGO Council on Violence Against Children.
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Universal Periodic Review
The 17th Session started this week, with the following States under review: China, Jordan,
Mauritius, Mexico, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Belize, Central African Republic, Chad,
Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Malta and Monaco. The session is due to finish on 1 November, so we will update you on key outcomes for children’s rights in next month’s edition. But in the meantime, you can read about the first cycle of review for the above countries here.
Importantly, Israel, who boycotted the UPR in January this year, is set to be reviewed on 29 October. You can find the country’s report, as well the report compiled by the UN (which contains information provided by NGOs) here.
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UN Treaty Bodies
The Human Rights Committee, the UN body responsible for the implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), is currently its 109th session (14 October -1 November). We will give a full round up on the children’s rights outcomes of the session in next month’s edition. In the meantime, you can find out more here.
Coming up:
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The Committee against Torture (CAT) is meeting in Geneva from 28 October to 22 November to review the following countries: Mozambique (28-29 Oct); Uzbekistan (29-30 Oct); Poland (30-31 Oct); Latvia (31 Oct-1 Nov); Belgium (5-6 Nov); Burkina Faso (6-7 Nov); Portugal (7-8 Nov); Andorra (11-12 Nov); Kyrgyzstan (12-13 Nov).
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The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) will be in session (its 51st) from 4 to 29 November.
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The Committee on Enforced Disappearances will hold its 5th session from 4 to 15 November.
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Useful Contacts and Resources
Useful Resources
Contacts and Organisations
As always, you can keep up to date with all our coverage of children’s rights at the UN by clicking on the following links:
If you have any feedback on our new CRINmail, please write to us at [email protected].
{THE LAST WORD}
“We see discrimination of children with disabilities, girls, children of ethnic minorities, and large scale unnecessary placement of children in institutions, as well as unaddressed issues in juvenile justice. And, as we know, in times of conflict and crisis children are the ones worse off. It is all the more important to strengthen children’s individual rights.”
- Kirsten Sandberg, new Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in her first oral update on the work of the Committee to the General Assembly, 16 October 2013.
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