CRINmail 131: November at the UN
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This month, we celebrated the 25th anniversary of the adoption of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
Since its adoption in 1989 after more than 60 years of advocacy, the CRC has been ratified more quickly and by more governments (all except South Sudan, Somalia and the United States) than any other human rights instrument. Its adoption marked the first time that children were explicitly recognised as having rights of their own.
Last week, a high-level meeting was held at the UN Headquarters in New York, hailing the CRC as a powerful human rights tool, while addressing some of the issues and situations where children’s rights are still violated - including child mortality, armed conflict, violence and displacement.
In a report to mark the CRC anniversary, UNICEF expressed that “we cannot afford to continue at the same pace for the next 25 years. Unless efforts are stepped up, the rights of millions of children will continue to be violated.”
At CRIN, we decided to mark the 25th anniversary of the CRC by looking at 25 new or neglected issues in children’s rights advocacy. The list starts off with five issues - age discrimination, minimum ages, the discipline excuse for assault, self determination and bodily integrity and access to justice - which demonstrate the long way children’s rights have to go before children are recognised as full and independent human rights holders. Later we looked at 20 other children’s rights issues as a sample of those which require greater attention. Read the full CRINmail.
We also issued a special edition of the Children and Armed Conflict CRINmail to draw attention to neglected aspects of conflicts and issues affecting children in conflict.
The UN General Assembly’s (GA) 69th session is still underway in New York. The Third Committee that discusses social and humanitarian affairs and human rights issues concluded its session this week. Read CRIN’s guide to the GA.
The Third Committee sent a draft resolution on the rights of the child (document A/C.3/69/L.24/Rev.1) to the GA. The 51-paragraph draft text covers a range of issues, including children’s economic and social rights, child labour and the prevention and elimination of violence against children. The draft text also covers the growing number of migrant children and addresses the situation of children affected by armed conflict.
The resolution, in its paragraph 51 (d), requests the Secretary-General to commission an in-depth global study on children deprived of liberty.
The resolution will be adopted at the plenary session of the GA in December.
According to the 2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons published by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC), one in three known victims of human trafficking is a child, and girls and women are particularly targeted and forced into “modern slavery”.
“Unfortunately, the report shows there is no place in the world where children, women and men are safe from human trafficking,” said UNODC Executive Director, Yury Fedotov.
In some regions, such as Africa and the Middle East, child trafficking is a major concern, with children constituting 62 per cent of victims.
However, no country is immune. There are at least 152 countries of origin and 124 countries of destination affected by trafficking in persons.
The UN Security Council has condemned in the strongest terms the massacres perpetrated against civilians on 20 November near the city of Beni in North Kivu in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) as well as the ongoing attacks targeting peacekeepers. The attacks were attributed to members of the Allied Democratic Forces (ADF), a rebel Ugandan armed group.
The situation in the town has been steadily deteriorating over the past few weeks amid a spate of attacks in which over 100 civilians, mostly women and children, have been killed, according to UN reports.
An upsurge in violent attacks last week between communities in Zémio, a town near the Central African Republic’s (CAR) border with South Sudan has left at least 10 people injured and thousands more displaced, marking the first major inter-communal incident in the region since the country’s crisis began in 2012.
A mission composed of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) country team members, a representative of the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN mission in CAR (MINUSCA), visited the town of Zémio, on the border with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), to assess the situation.
The latest eruption of violence began on 10 December 2012, when the Seleka (‘Alliance’) rebel coalition launched a series of attacks, culminating in March 2013 when President François Bozizé was forced to flee.
The country descended into ethnic and sectarian violence, with thousands of people fleeing their homes and the UN warning of a high risk of genocide.
In an interview with the UN News Centre, Edward Mortimer, who served as Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s speechwriter, policy advisor and Director of Communications from 1998 to 2006, expressed the need to change the way in which the Secretary-General of the UN is selected.
“I think there has got to be a more transparent and more inclusive process,” said Mr. Mortimer.
“I think there’s something for everybody to do here to change this process and ensure that we really look for the best person – whatever their gender, whatever their nationality – who will do the best job for the world. This is a unique job and it’s an enormous responsibility. And the world needs to find the best person to do that job.”
Read more about transparency at the UN in CRIN’s transparency campaign. The Campaign aims to stimulate open and transparent appointment processes to identify leaders with the appropriate commitment, skills and experience to work effectively for children's rights.
The Human Rights Committee reviewed six States’ compliance under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) during its 112th session, including for (hyperlinks go to the children’s rights extracts on our website):
Sri Lanka: Recommendations were made around access to reproductive health services for women and girls, reports of torture and ill treatment of children in detention and the practice of corporal punishment in all settings.
Israel: The Committee expressed concern over the widespread, systematic and institutionalised use of torture and other ill-treatment of Palestinian children in detention and the arbitrary arrest of Palestinian children who often do not enjoy full procedural rights.
Montenegro: The Committee expressed concern that children are still subject to domestic violence, corporal punishment in all settings, trafficking and early marriage.
Malta: The Committee expressed concern about the low number of prosecutions of perpetrators of violence against children, the detention of migrant children who are not systematically provided legal assistance and children aged between 16 and 18 in conflict with the law tried as adults.
The Concluding Observations for Burundi and Haiti are not yet available in English.
Go to the Committee’s session's page for more information.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women reviewed the compliance of the following States under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) during its 59th session (hyperlinks go to the children’s rights extracts on our website):
Belgium: The Committee expressed concern about harmful practices including female genital mutilation (FGM), forced marriage,violence against girls and the low number of prosecutions of traffickers of women and girls. The Committee was also concerned about the affect on women and girls of the ban on wearing headscarves in different parts of the country, urging the State party to monitor and assess the impact of the ban.
Brunei Darussalam: Recommendations were made around harmful practices such as the low age of marriage (14 under customary law), the lack of information on the number of complaints, investigations, prosecutions and convictions related to trafficking in women and girls and negative stereotypes and structural barriers to the enrolment of girls in non-traditional fields of education.
China: The Committee expressed concern that the persistence of deep-rooted stereotypes regarding the roles and responsibilities of women and men in the family and society has resulted in infanticide of girls, that girls with intellectual disabilities and rom ethnic and religious minorities have limited access to education and that the minimum age for marriage in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region remains 16.
Guinea: Recommendations were made around child marriage, female genital mutilation, trafficking of girls, low enrolment rates of girls in schools and the very high incidence of child labour, including the worst forms of child labour.
Poland: Recommendations were made around trafficking of girls, the absence of mandatory comprehensive age appropriate education on sexual and reproductive health in school curricula and the limited access to modern contraceptives, including the barriers adolescent girls may face in accessing information and reproductive health services.
Solomon Islands: The Committee was concerned that girls are still subjected to child marriage and bride selling, that corporal punishment continues, that women and girls who have been trafficked receive limited assistance and that public policies and measures to protect the rights of women and girls with disabilities are missing.
Venezuela: The Committee was concerned that violence against women and girls is widespread and on the rise, that girls are victims of trafficking and sexual exploitation, that they have been detained arbitrarily and/or harassed during demonstrations and that the minimum age for marriage was raised to only 16 for boys and girls.
Ghana: Recommendations were made around harmful practices including early marriage and violence against girls and older women alleged to be witches, trafficking of girls and the low enrolment and completion rates of girls in schools.
Go to the Committee’s session's page for more information.
The Committee on Migrant Workers reviewed the compliance of Ghana under the International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW) during its 21th session.
The Committee urged Ghana to develop effective mechanisms to identify victims of trafficking and smuggling, especially migrant women and children.
Go to the Committee’s session's page for more information.
The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities reviewed the compliance of the following States under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD) during its 12th session (hyperlinks go to the children’s rights extracts on our website):
Denmark: The Committee was concerned that the Act on Gender Equality does not specifically address women and girls with disabilities and children who are hospitalized in psychiatric hospitals and can be subject to forced treatment.
New Zealand: The Committee was concerned that some children with disabilities, especially Maori children, have difficulty in accessing some government services, including health and education services, that parents may give consent for the sterilisation of their disabled children and that children with disabilities experience bullying in schools.
Republic of Korea: The Committee was concerned about cases of forced sterilisation of girls with disabilities, that support services provided to families of children with disabilities is limited to low-income families that include persons with severe disabilities and that students with disabilities enrolled in regular schools fail to receive education that is suitable to their impairment-related needs.
The Committee also reviewed the reports of Belgium, Ecuador and Mexico but the Concluding Observations are not yet available in English.
Go to the Committee’s session's page for more information.
The Committee on Enforced Disappearances reviewed the compliance of Belgium and Paraguay under the Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance (CED) during its 7th session (hyperlinks go to the children’s rights extracts on our website):
Belgium: The Committee recommended that the State party finalise and adopt the royal decrees on registers of persons deprived of liberty and on gathering, conserving and accessing information on the origin of adopted children.
Paraguay: The Committee was concerned that criminal laws do not include provisions which specifically penalise conduct relating to the removal of children who are subject to enforced disappearance or whose parents or guardian have been subject to forced disappearance.
Go to the Committee’s session's page for more information.
In its 27th session (September 2014), the Human Rights Council adopted the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) working group reports (from the 19th session of the UPR) for 14 countries. CRIN compiled the children’s rights extracts for the countries below and will soon finalise extracts for the remaining reports (hyperlinks go to the children’s rights extracts on our website):
Bhutan was urged to increase efforts to prevent the worst forms of child labour, to address the decline of female enrolment in schools, to prevent child marriages and consider prohibiting the use of corporal punishment of children in all settings.
Brunei Darussalam was urged to increase the access of children, women and persons with disabilities to education, raise the minimum age of criminal responsibility and prohibit sentences of corporal punishment and life imprisonment for children under the age of 18 and prohibit corporal punishment in all settings.
Costa Rica was urged to criminalise all forms of child trafficking, facilitate access to justice and provide compensation for child victims, end violence against children and take measures to end discrimination against indigenous and migrant children and children with disabilities.
The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was urged to enact and implement legislation to prohibit corporal punishment of children in all settings and take measures to protect women and children from sexual abuse in detention.
The Democratic Republic of Congo was urged to adopt provisions prohibiting early marriages and female genital mutilation, strengthen the implementation of measures and provisions to eradicate all forms of discrimination and violence against women and girls, systematically investigate, prosecute and punish all cases of sexual violence against girls and women and step up efforts to end child recruitment.
Portugal was urged to invest more effort in improving access to education for children from Ciganos and Roma communities and continue to combat racial stereotypes of those communities, protect groups that are particularly vulnerable to budget cuts, including children and the elderly, and ensure the rights of unaccompanied and separated children seeking asylum are respected.
Dominica was urged to ratify the Optional Protocol to the CRC on a communications procedure, take steps to protect children from domestic violence, abuse and from the worst forms of child labour, enhance children’s access to education and ensure that no life sentence is applied to any child under the age of 18.
Norway was urged to ratify the Optional Protocol to the CRC on a communications procedure and the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, put in place general measures to prevent violence against women and girls and implement juvenile justice standards, in particular in regard to pretrial detention of juveniles and the segregation of juveniles from adult prisoners.
Albania was urged to address the issue of violence against children, including trafficking and sexual abuse, take measures aimed at achieving inclusive education for children with disabilities, strengthen the education measures and policies for the inclusion of Roma students in the education system and abolish the practice of detention of unaccompanied children.
- Committee on the Rights of the Child: 1 March 2015 for the review of Benin, Brunei Darussalam, France, Gabon, Haiti, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Ireland, Kenya, Maldives, Oman, Peru, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
- Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: 9 January 2015 for the review of Gambia, Paraguay and Tajikistan.
- Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women: 2 February 2015 for the review of Azerbaijan, Denmark, Ecuador, Eritrea, Gabon, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives and Tuvalu.
- Committee Against Torture: 9 February 2015 for the review of Colombia, Congo, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Spain and The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.
- Committee on Migrant Workers: 20 March 2015 for the review of Kyrgyzstan, Peru, Sri Lanka and Uganda.
- Committee on Enforced Disappearances: 9 January 2015 for the review of Armenia, Mexico and Serbia.
- Universal Periodic Review (UPR): 23 March 2015 (tentative dates) for the review of Micronesia, Lebanon, Mauritania, Nauru, Rwanda, Nepal, Saint Lucia, Oman, Austria, Myanmar, Australia, Georgia, Saint Kitts and Nevis and Sao Tome and Principe.
- Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers: Tunisia from 27 November to 5 December.
- Special Rapporteur on truth: Burundi from 1 to 10 December.
- Working Group on people of African descent: Sweden from 1 to 5 December.
- Independent Expert on the effects of foreign debt and other related international financial obligations of States on the full enjoyment of all human rights, particularly economic, social and cultural rights: Iceland from 8 to 15 December.
- Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants: Nepal from 4 to 11 December.
- Working Group on discrimination against women: Spain from 9 to 19 December.
- Special Rapporteur on violence against women: Sudan from 14 to 23 December and the State of Palestine from 19 to 29 January 2015.
- Special Rapporteur on freedom of peaceful assembly and association: Kazakhstan from 19 to 30 January 2015.
- Special Rapporteur on adequate housing as a component of the right to an adequate standard of living, and on the right to non-discrimination in this context: Cabo Verde from 19 to 27 January 2015.
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Closing
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.
The process of getting ECOSOC status lacks transparency and clear accountability. This is why CRIN, together with other NGOs, decided to take 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 more here.
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