In this issue:

A lot has happened at the UN over the last month, with both the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Human Rights Council in session. In addition, CRIN has launched two campaigns, one tackling a lack of transparency at the NGO gatekeeper to the UN - ECOSOC; the other calling for better protection of children’s right to access information amid States increasing censorship on topics including LGBT rights, drugs and politics.

The edition covers the above, and more. As always, we do our best to provide information on upcoming children’s rights advocacy opportunities at the UN.

Transparency at the UN? 

ECOSOC status: States blocking NGOs at the UN

Getting ECOSOC status allows NGOs to participate fully in the UN system. Without it, they are confined to the sidelines - unable to submit questions, attend UN sessions or hold side events in their own name.

CRIN has been deferred from attaining ECOSOC status six times - the latest in June this year - since we applied in 28 May 2010 by what we believe are tactics employed by some States to deny access to NGOs critical of governments and select their own jury at the UN. This impression is shared by others. The International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) has been reporting on ECOSOC's work and its lack of transparency. The Human Rights House Foundation called ECOSOC the “21st century censorship bureau” in an article from May 2014. 

States who are committee members are controlling the review process to defer applications, such as asking (often repetitive) questions that go beyond the scope of what NGOs are required to submit with their applications.

The process of getting ECOSOC status lacks transparency and clear accountability. This is why CRIN, together with other NGOs, are taking action within our transparency campaign to call upon the ECOSOC Committee on NGOs to stop blocking access for legitimate human rights organisations to the ECOSOC status.

• Read the open letter to the ECOSOC Committee on NGOs, signed by a group of civil society organisations from around the world.
• Read more about CRIN's ECOSOC application, including all (repetitive) questions and answers by the Committee.
• Read an interview with CRINs director Veronica Yates by the ISHR on transparency in the ECOSOC process.

Call for contributions: right to peaceful assembly

Related to our ECOSOC transparency campaign, the Special Rapporteur on peaceful assembly and of association is asking for contributions for their upcoming report on how States are impacting on civil society space at the international level, including at the UN. Questions are specifically asked on NGOs’ experiences of getting accreditation at the international level, which includes ECOSOC.

CRIN is encouraging NGOs who have been denied access to the UN and other bodies because of a lack of transparency in accreditation processes, such as ECOSOC, to complete the questionnaire.

Download the questionnaire. Responses need to be sent to [email protected] by 25 July.

Who has the top jobs in human rights? 

As part of our Transparency Campaign, we monitor and report on the appointment process for the top jobs in human rights, including those at the UN.

UN elects new Committee on the Rights of the Child members 

Nine people were elected by the UN General Assembly to serve on the Committee on the Rights of the Child on 25 June. In CRIN tradition we strive to interview all candidates who are willing to speak to us to give both States electing the candidates, and civil society, a better picture of their credentials.

The following are the successful nine candidates who have won a seat on the Committee and will officially begin their term on 1 March 2015. Below you can view their CV and, where applicable, CRIN's interview with them in the lead up to the election. CRIN hopes to interview the successful candidates who have not yet taken part in the interviews.

• Ms. Suzanne Aho Assouma (Togo): Interview (in French) / CV (also in French) 
• Ms. Hynd Ayoubi Idrissi (Morocco): Interview (in Arabic | English ) / CV (also in Arabic | French)
• Mr. Jorge Cardona Llorens (Spain): Interview (in Spanish) / CV (also in French | Spanish) (second term)
• Mr. Joseph Clarence Nelson (Samoa): CV
• Mr. Bernard Gastaud (Monaco): CV (also in French) (second term)
• Mr. Hatem Kotrane (Tunisia): Interview (in French) / CV (also in French) (second term)
• Mr. Gehad Madi (Egypt): Interview / CV (second term)
• Mr. José Ángel Rodriguez Reyes (Venezuela): CV
• Ms. Kirsten Sandberg (Norway): Interview  / CV (second term)

New UN High Commissioner for Human Rights 

The UN has appointed a new High Commissioner for Human Rights. On 16 June the General Assembly unanimously approved Prince Zeid Ra’ad Zeid al-Hussein of Jordan to succeed Navi Pillay as the new High Commissioner.

Prince Zeid’s term starts on 1 September, and his mandate is to promote and protect the enjoyment and full realisation, by all people, of all rights enshrined in the UN Charter and in international human rights laws and treaties. He is Jordan's Permanent Representative to the UN, a post he also held previously for six and a half years (2000–2007). From 2007 to 2010 he served as Jordan's Ambassador to the United States of America and non-resident Ambassador to Mexico.

New special procedure mandate holders 

The Human Rights Council appointed six new special procedure mandate holders during its latest session, including:

• David Kaye from the United States of America as the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.
• Maria Grazia Giammarinaro from Italy as the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children.
• Dainius Puras from Lithuania as the Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. Puras was a member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child from 2007 to 2011. 

Human Rights Council - 26th session 

The 26th session of the Human Rights Council closed on 27 June. Below are some of the key outcomes for children’s rights.

Traditional values: ‘Protection of the family’

The Council adopted a resolution on the ‘protection of the family’ on 26 June, which, despite appearing uncontroversial, threatens children’s rights and signified attempts by some States to restrict the definition of the family. The resolution ignores the reality that various forms of families exist and seeks to subvert the human rights of individual family members, including children, to the ‘rights’ of the family as a unit.

The resolution was championed by Egypt with strong support from Bangladesh, China, Morocco, Qatar, the Russian Federation and Uganda, among others.

After the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) put out an urgent call for action, NGOs, including CRIN, called on human rights defenders around to world to urge their governments to vote against the resolution.

Chile, Uruguay, Ireland and France proposed an amendment to the resolution to recognise that diverse forms of the family exist and ensure that the text complied with international human rights standards, including the right to non-discrimination and children’s rights. This attempt was thwarted by Russia who brought a 'no-action motion' - a procedural tactic designed to prevent the issue from even being discussed - which was supported by 22 member States, while 20 voted against and 6 abstained. “Rather than employing cheap tricks and theatrics to push their initiatives, States should consider the merits of each proposal in the spirit of dialogue, debate and freedom of expression that should pervade the Council”, says ISHR's Pooja Patel. 

Child 'marriage'

This abusive practice cannot be characterised as 'marriage', said the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Flavia Pansieri, as she opened a panel discussion on child, early and forced marriage on 23 June during the Human Rights Council’s 26th session. She then reminded the Council that if present trends continue, approximately 142 million girls would be ‘married’ before their 18th birthday by 2020 - that’s 39,000 every day - despite the UN clearly articulating that both parties to a marriage must be at least 18 years old and giving free and full consent to the marriage.

The discussion then moved onto the causes of child marriage, including unequal gender status and poverty. Pooja Badarinath from CREA, a feminist human rights organisation based in India, said that control over the sexual and reproductive rights of girls and women were among the root causes, noting that more than a 100 countries did not explicitly criminalise rape within marriage.

Soyata Maiga, Special Rapporteur on the rights of women at the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights, said that the challenge in eliminating child marriage is that often both children and women have a very weak legal status within families and communities. She also recommended sexual and reproductive health education in schools, better birth and marriage registration, and education of religious and community leaders on the harms of child marriage, as ways to tackle this rights violation.

Further information:

• Campaign by the African Union to end child marriage. 
• Report - Violating children’s rights: Harmful practices based on tradition, culture, religion or superstition. 

Female genital mutilation

Like child 'marriage', female genital mutilation (FGM) is steeped in gender-based discrimination and power imbalances. This rights violation, often against children, also violates the right to be free from torture and the right to health, and is a form of control over women, said Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, on 16 June in her remarks opening a panel discussion on FGM during the Council’s 26th session. 

Speakers on the panel stressed that tradition, culture, religion or superstition must never be used to justify FGM.  Regional strategies are needed to combat FGM, said Mariame Lamizana, President of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practice, who went on to urge the international community to support community programmes and improve regional coordination. Marleen Temmerman, from the World Health Organization’s Department of Reproductive Health Research, said that States need to tackle FGM with the law and adopt, implement and enforce specific legislation against it. Plan International also recommended that States institute a total ban on the practice in law, and work with traditional and religious leaders to prevent it.

Medical practitioners play a key role in helping people who have suffered violence and other human rights abuses. However, they have also been known to subject people to violations (see CRIN’s campaign to end the inhuman sentencing and the role medical practitioners can play). Temmerman noted that 18 per cent of mutilations were performed by medical practitioners, and that this was on the rise.

Right to health, junk food and non-communicable diseases

The link between childhood obesity and health problems throughout life is well know. A report presented during the Council’s 26th session makes the human rights argument against the accessibility and advertising of junk food.

The report, presented by the Special Rapporteur on the right to everyone on the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health to the Council’s 26th session, draws links between unhealthy foods, advertising and non-communicable diseases (NCDs) (such as heart disease, diabetes etc). In the report the Special Rapporteur says that “children are particularly vulnerable to diet-related NCDs either because they may be dependent on others, such as parents or schools, for food, or because they are more susceptible to marketing pressures”.

The Special Rapporteur goes onto recommend “that the food industry refrain from marketing, promoting and advertising of unhealthy foods to the population, especially to children”. In terms of the obligations on States, the Special Rapporteur urges them “to implement their obligations regarding children’s right to health, which requires States to address obesity in children, limit children’s exposure to fast foods and drinks high in sugar and caffeine and other harmful substances, regulate the marketing of such foods and control their availability in schools and other places frequented by children”. Education campaigns and getting children’s input into school lunch programmes were among the other recommendations put forward by the Special Rapporteur.

Syria: Increase in the number of children killed and maimed, says UN

“There has been a marked increase in the number of attacks on functioning schools resulting in the killing and maiming of children,” says the latest report from the Commission of Inquiry on Syria to the Council. The report then details - with stark directness - some examples.

Children are also suffering post-traumatic stress disorder because of what they have experienced and witnessed. They are also denied their right to education because they and their parents are too afraid of schools - going to school is a choice “about life and death” said Paulo Pinheiro, chair of the Commission. The report also notes that children continue to be recruited to participate in the conflict, as does a new video report by Human Rights Watch.

Presenting the report on 17 June to the Council during its 26th session, Pinheiro said: “The international community, and specifically the Security Council, has yet to demand accountability for the crimes that are being committed daily against the Syrian people. Through their inaction, a space has been created for the worst of humanity to express itself.”

Outcomes of the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s 66th session 

The Committee on the Rights of the Child held its 66th session from 26 May to 13 June. The below countries were reviewed. Along with some of the issues covered in the Committee's concluding observations, the hyperlinks below take you to the concluding observations in CRIN’s library.

India 

Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

• Discrimination: The Committee is concerned about discrimination against girls, children with disabilities, children with HIV/AIDS, asylum-seeking and refugee children, as well as discrimination based on caste. It recommends the State adopt and implement a comprehensive strategy to address all forms of discrimination against children.
• Right to be heard: The Committee recommends the State take measures to ensure the implementation of legislation recognising the right of the child to be heard in relevant legal proceedings. The Committee also recommends the State conduct research into the issues most important to children and how they can best influence decision makers, and promote participation of all children within the family, community and schools.
• Sexual and reproductive health education: The Committee recommends that this becomes part of the mandatory school curriculum. The Committee also urges the State to take measures to ensure adolescents have access to confidential information and services, and that the views of pregnant teenagers and always heard and respected in abortion decisions.

Optional Protocol on sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (OPSC)

• Remedies: The Committee urges India to protect the rights and interests of child victims, including ensuring that complaints mechanisms and counselling are easily accessible; the best interests of the child (particularly victims and witnesses) are a primary consideration; professionals receive child-specific training; and qualified and independent legal advice is available free of charge (or subsidised) to victims.

Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC): 

• Preventing the recruitment of children: The Committee urges the State to enact legislation prohibiting and criminalising the recruitment of children by non-State armed groups, as well as in the police forces, affiliated forces and in village defence committees.
• Military schools: The Committee recommends the State take measures to ban military-type training, including the use of firearms, at military schools for all children, and ensure that children in military schools are subject to military discipline.
• Juvenile justice: The Committee calls on the State to prohibit criminal and administrative proceedings against children, as well as prohibit their detention in military detention centres. Instead, the Committee recommends that all children in conflict with the law be handled by the juvenile justice system.

Indonesia 

CRC

• Corporal punishment: The Committee urges the State to amend its current legislation to prohibit corporal punishment in all settings.
• Right to be heard: The Committee urges the State to amend its legislation to avoid any limitation on the child’s right to be heard or express his or her view.
• Sexual and reproductive health: The Committee recommends the State take all necessary legal amendments to ensure full and unconditional access to information and confidential services regarding sexual and reproductive health and contraception, without the need for consent from parents or husbands.
• Drug and substance misuse: The Committee recommends the State allocate all necessary human, technical and financial resources to address drug use by children by providing children with accurate and objective information, and develop accessible drug dependence treatment and harm reduction services.

Jordan 

CRC

• Non-discrimination: The Committee recommends that the State abolish the discriminatory classifications of children as “illegitimate” or “children victims of lascivious conduct”.
• Gender-based crimes: The Committee strongly urges the State to repeal without further delay all legal provisions condoning gender based crimes, and ensure that all perpetrators of gender-based crimes, including those committed in the name of so-called honour, receive penalties commensurate with the gravity of their crimes.
• Access to justice and remedies: The State should develop safe, well-publicised, confidential and accessible reporting mechanisms for children, and remove the condition for children to be assisted by their parents to make a complaint.

OPSC

• Sale of children: The State should ensure that all those involved in the sale of girls for the purpose of forced marriage, sexual abuse and exploitation be held accountable and punished, as well as develop and implement a functioning system with neighbouring countries to prevent girls from being sold for the purpose of early or forced marriage.
• Child sex tourism: The State should conduct advocacy with the tourism industry on the harmful effects of child sex tourism.

OPAC

• Recruitment of children: The Committee recommends the State raise the age for voluntary recruitment of public security officers to 18 years. It also recommends the State explicitly prohibit and criminalise the recruitment and use of children under 18 years of age in hostilities by armed forces and non-State armed groups and the recruitment and use of children by security companies.

Kyrgyzstan 

CRC

• Torture: The Committee is extremely concerned about widespread torture and ill-treatment of children by law enforcement personnel in detention facilities, including solitary confinement for up to seven days. The Committee is also concerned about a lack of complaints mechanism and effective investigations into such cases. The Committee urges the State to launch prompt and effective independent investigations; provide care and compensation to victims; and establish and effective complaints mechanism for torture and ill-treatment of children in detention.

Saint Lucia 

CRC

• Corporal punishment: The Committee reiterates its concern that corporal punishment is still a lawful way of disciplining children, and that it continues to be practiced within the family, schools and in institutions and is widely accepted in society. The Committee recommends the State expand its awareness-raising campaigns on the negative impact of corporal punishment and promote non-violent forms of child-rearing and discipline.
• Sexual exploitation and abuse: The Committee has a number of serious concerns, including:
  • The practice of perpetrators paying parents to drop cases of child sexual abuse.
  • There is no stipulated age of consent for boys, putting them at increased risk of sexual exploitation and abuse.
  • The law regarding reporting of sexual abuse is limited to abuse against children over 12 years old.

The Committee recommends the State ensure that cases of sexual abuse and exploitation against children are investigated, and that perpetrators are brought to justice and that out of court settlements involving financial arrangements are prohibited; set an age of consent for boys; and ensure mandatory reporting of all forms of abuse and neglect against children including those under 12 years of age.

United Kingdom 

OPSC

• Child sex tourism: The Committee is deeply concerned that the State’s citizens, including convicted sex offenders who have set up orphanages and charities in other countries, travel and sexually abuse children abroad, and that the State’s laws and policies fail both to prevent British sex offenders from travelling overseas and to prosecute them when they commit offences abroad. The Committee recommends the State establish a specialised police unit directed at extra-territorial sex offences against children, and take all necessary measures to restrict the movement of child sex offenders from leaving the United Kingdom.

Access to information: UN urged to protect children and stop censorship

Increasing numbers of States are blocking children's access to information on grounds of protection, with sex education, sexuality and drug use the main targets of censorship. These restrictions are doing more harm than good, according to a new CRIN policy paper, which outlines how access to honest, objective and age-appropriate information is vital for children’s enjoyment of their human rights, including to life, health and protection.

In the paper, Access Denied: Protect rights - unblock children’s access to information, CRIN is calling for stronger international standards, guidelines and model laws on children’s access to information by the United Nations and regional human rights mechanisms. In particular:

• The Committee on the Rights of the Child should pursue children’s right to access information in its examination of States, clarify the goals of children’s right to access to information (article 17, CRC) and freedom of expression (article 13, CRC) to prevent dispropriate restrictions, and explicitly recommend to States that children receive sexuality education according to international standards.
• The UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression should carry out an in-depth global study on restrictions to children’s access to information.

The paper launches a new campaign - Protect Children, End Censorship - with which CRIN aims to draw attention to undue restrictions on children’s access to information, emphasise why such restrictions are violations of their rights and call for stronger standards and leadership in this area.

CRIN aims to promote policy discussions and ignite debate about children’s rights, and would like to hear from people with:

• Comments on the paper;
• Information about laws or policies restricting children’s access to information;
• Relevant positive developments in laws and policies; and/or
• Ideas for further regional and international advocacy.

Either email contributions to [email protected], or use (and follow) #1984children on Twitter.

Universal Periodic Review update

In its 26th session (June 2014), the Human Rights Council adopted the UPR working group reports (from the 18th session of the UPR) for the below countries (hyperlinks go to the children’s rights extracts on our website):

• Afghanistan should take all measures to end recruitment of children by military groups; to prevent child and forced marriages and to revise legislation related to child marriage to bring it in line with international standards; and to repeal a law which gives perpetrators of honour killings legal concessions.
• Cambodia should take necessary measures against human trafficking and child labour (specially, finalise the draft national plan to eliminate the worst forms of child labour for 2013-2018); and to establish adequate mechanisms to protect women and children from sexual abuse.
• Chile should establish a children’s ombudsperson; take steps to establish a specialised juvenile justice system; and explicitly prohibit corporal punishment in all settings.
• Comoros is urged to avoid discrimination against LGBT persons.
• Cyprus should apply alternative measures to the detention of unaccompanied migrant children.
• Dominican Republic should decriminalise abortion and ensure that women and girls seeking it and health professionals are not subject to criminal sanctions; and strengthen efforts and implement policies to address discrimination against LGBT persons.
• Eritrea is recommended to end the practice of children undertaking their final year schooling in a military training camp.
• Macedonia (Former Yugoslav Republic of) should take necessary measures to effectively eliminate child labour.
• New Zealand: No mention of children’s rights in recommendations. 
• Slovakia should reinforce measures for combating trafficking in women and girls for the purposes of sexual exploitation.
• Uruguay should adopt a comprehensive national plan of action to address the worst forms of child labour; and put in place additional measures to combat trafficking in persons, especially women and children and enable victims to access justice.
• Vanuatu should include human rights education in school curricula.
• Viet Nam should intensity the fight against child prostitution, trafficking and other forms of sexual exploitation.
• Yemen must take urgent steps to set the minimum age of marriage at 18 years and to end the practice of child and forced marriage; to announce a moratorium on the death penalty with a view to its abolition, and ensure that it is not imposed on children; and to take action to eradicate female gential mutilatin (FGM).

NB: NGOs and National Human Rights Institutions (NHRI) can now send their statements to the pre-session working group of the 20th UPR session that will take place in October 2014 where the following countries will be reviewed: Italy, El Salvador, Gambia, Bolivia, Fiji, San Marino, Kazakhstan, Angola, Iran, Madagascar, Iraq, Slovenia, Egypt and Bosnia and Herzegovina. More details can be found via UPR-Info.

Upcoming

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW)

CEDAW’s 58th session will take place between 30 June and 18 July, with the following States’ women’s rights records under review: Central African Republic, Georgia, India, Lithuania, Mauritania, Peru, Swaziland and Syrian Arab Republic. All official documents can be found on the website of that Office for the High Commissioner of Human Rights (OHCHR). 

Human Rights Committee (CCPR)

The following state reports for compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) will be reviewed by CCPR during its 111th session: Chile, Georgia, Ireland, Japan, Malawi and Sudan. 

In addition, the CCPR will draw up the list of issues (what States will be expected to report and be reviewed on in a future session) for the following States: Cambodia, Côte d'Ivoire, Cyprus, France, Russian Federation, Mexico and Poland.

Special procedures

• Working Group (WG) on people of African descent - the Netherlands (30 June to 4 July)
• Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences - Honduras (1 to 8 July)
• WG on arbitrary detention - Italy (7 to 9 July)
• Independent Expert on the situation of human rights in Haiti - Haiti (13 to 22 July)

LAST WORD

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