CRINmail 132:
December at the UN
In this issue:
News update:
Human rights mechanisms:
Coming up in 2015
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The World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Development Programme (UNDP), and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) have published a joint report on the global status of violence prevention in 2014.
The report assesses national efforts to address interpersonal violence, namely child maltreatment, youth violence, intimate partner violence, sexual violence, and elder abuse at home, school and in communities.
According to the report, one in four children has been physically abused, one in five girls has been sexually abused and one in three women has been a victim of physical violence at some point in her lifetime.
Homicide is the third leading cause of death globally for males aged 15-44, with 475,000 people murdered in 2012.
The UN High Commissioner for Refugees organised the Seventh High Commissioner’s Dialogue on Protection Challenges on the issue of protection at sea on 10 and 11 December.
Every day, migrants all over the world cross or attempt to cross sea borders to escape poverty, discrimination, persecution and other human rights violations, to reunite with families, or to seek better living and working conditions.
The UN estimates that in the Mediterranean alone more than 130,000 migrants and asylum seekers have been rescued while trying to reach Europe by sea, and that over 3,000 people have died so far this year.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, urged States and other actors to use the Recommended Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights at International Borders, recently released by the UN Human Rights Office. They provide practical guidance to attain border regulation measures respectful of human rights.
The Guidelines give guidance for improving the screening of migrants at borders and their referral to health, social and legal aid services, for instance by dismantling discriminatory barriers to entry and identifying and protecting migrants who may be at particular risk, including children, pregnant women, older persons and persons with disabilities.
The guidelines include the following recommendations on children’s rights:
Introduction
The best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration applicable to all children who come under the State’s jurisdiction at international borders, regardless of their migration status or that of their parents. States shall ensure that children in the context of migration are treated first and foremost as children and ensure that the principle of the child’s best interest takes precedence over migration management objectives or other administrative considerations.
Guideline 3 on building human rights capacity:
Recruiting specially trained personnel including, where appropriate, medical professionals and healthcare workers, child protection professionals, guardians for unaccompanied or separated children, legal aid providers, interpreters and cultural liaison officers. Consideration should be given to permanently posting such personnel at high traffic international borders and/or maintaining an up-to-date list of qualified professionals to attend on a needs basis in person or, in exceptional cases when prompt access cannot be guaranteed, remotely by phone or video-conference. (para. 7).
Guideline 6 on human rights in the context of humanitarian assistance:
Limiting interviews carried out by border authorities with children to only gather basic information about the child’s identity. Children identified as being unaccompanied or separated should be immediately referred to child protection agencies, and only be interviewed in the presence of an appropriately trained childcare worker. Children travelling with adults should be verified as being accompanied by or related to them, including through separate interviews with appropriately trained and qualified personnel. (para. 17)
Guideline 7 on identification and referral:
Ensuring that relevant service providers are present at international borders, such as competent interpreters including sign-language interpreters, legal aid service providers, health service providers, guardians for separated children and others. (para. 3)
Ensuring that children are promptly identified and that anyone claiming to be a child is treated as such and where appropriate given access to proper age determination processes, appointed a guardian, and referred to child protection authorities and other relevant services. Age determination processes should be a measure of last resort and be carried out in a prompt, child-friendly, gender-sensitive and multi-disciplinary manner, and be conducted by child protection officials or officials with sufficient and relevant expertise and training. The benefit of the doubt should be given to the individual being assessed, who should have the opportunity to appeal the decision before an independent body. (para. 7)
Guideline 8 on avoiding detention:
Ensuring in legislation, policy and practice that children are never detained on the basis of their or their parents’ migration status, irregular entry or stay including through release or, where appropriate, adopting human rights-based, non-custodial, community based alternatives to detention in accordance with the best interests of the child. (para. 6)
Ensuring that in the exceptional cases where children are detained, they are housed with their family members unless there are compelling reasons for separation; that unaccompanied children are not housed with unrelated adults; and that all children have access to adequate healthcare and education. Child protection agencies, rather than immigration agencies should take primary responsibility for children. (para. 11)
Ensuring that unaccompanied children are provided with competent guardians who are able to assist children in all forms of decision-making. (para. 15)
Investigating and prosecuting allegations of violence, sexual abuse or other forms of ill-treatment at places of detention and putting in place measures to ensure non-repetition, and particularly ensuring that women, children, older persons, disabled persons and LGBTI individuals are supported to report such abuse. (para. 20)
Guideline 9 on human rights-based return or removal:
Ensuring that a guardian will accompany children throughout the return process, that the family or guardian has been identified, and that there is clarity about reception and care arrangements of children in countries to which they are being returned. Children should only be returned where it has been determined through an adequate and participatory process that it is in the best interests of the child. (para. 7)
Ensuring children are never handed over to border authorities of receiving countries if it is unclear how they will be cared for. Families should not be separated during removal procedures. Unaccompanied and separated children should not be returned without ensuring that proper care and custodial arrangements are in place and that family members have been traced in the country of return. (para. 13)
Punitive demolitions of Palestinian homes by Israel have resulted in the displacement of 34 Palestinians, including 16 children between 1 June and 30 November 2014. Meanwhile at least six Palestinian families are at imminent risk of displacement.
“[P]unitive demolitions are a form of collective penalty that punishes people for acts they did not commit,” said James W Rawley, UN Humanitarian Coordinator, adding that “[t]hey render innocent people homeless.
The impact on children, women and the elderly is particularly devastating.” Israeli authorities have also been criticised for sealing homes – the practice of completely or partially closing off the rooms of a home with concrete or metal sheeting.
The UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, Philip Alston, urged the World Bank to recognise the central importance of human rights to its draft environmental and social policies, also known as Safeguard policies, which apply to its investment project financing.
“The draft Safeguards seem to go out of their way to avoid any meaningful references to human rights,” Mr. Alston stressed, in a joint letter to World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, together with a group of twenty-seven other UN independent experts.
In their joint letter, the UN experts also highlighted a range of specific concerns with the proposed new safeguarding policies, including clear dilution of existing standards, such as the effective abolition of child labour included in the International Labour Organisation’s labour standards. In addition, many vulnerable groups, such as children, LGBTI and people with a physical or mental disability, remain virtually unprotected in Bank projects.
The 20th session of the Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review (UPR) Working Group was held from 27 October to 7 November during which 14 States’ human rights records were examined.
The UPR has now reviewed 112 States during its second cycle.
The States listed below were reviewed. The first links provided are to children’s rights extracts from the State’s first review, including the UPR’s recommendations rejected by States. The second are to CRIN’s country pages where you can find more information on the children’s rights situation in each State.
You can also use our library to search for follow up reports to the UPR submitted by NGOs. These detail the extent to which the State is following the UPR’s recommendations from the first review cycle.
Italy: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page,
El Salvador: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Gambia: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Bolivia: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Fiji: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
San Marino: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Kazakhstan: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Angola: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
The Islamic Republic of Iran: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Madagascar: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Iraq: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Slovenia: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Egypt: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Bosnia and Herzegovina: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
The Committee on Economic Social and Cultural Rights reviewed nine States’ compliance with the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights during its 53rd session, including:
Finland: The Committee expressed concern over the increasing number of children placed in care institutions and the difficulties faced by children of immigrant background, as well as Roma children, in the education system.
Montenegro: The Committee expressed concern over the practice of early and forced marriages, the incidence of child labour, including forced begging and informal and dangerous work on the streets, and the lack of information available on measures taken to increase access to contraceptives and reproductive health services and information to adolescents.
Nepal: The Committee expressed concern over harmful practices against girls including forced and early marriages and accusations of witchcraft, and the high number of children who are trafficked for labour and sexual exploitation, as well as for begging and slavery.
Portugal: The Committee expressed concern over the high rate of early school dropout, the low level of education of Roma children, and the high poverty rate.
Romania: The Committee expressed concern over the reports of forced evictions of families with children, the limited access to sexual and reproductive health education and services to adolescents, and the low level of education of Roma children.
Slovenia: The Committee expressed concern over regional disparities in access to education, and the shortage of child and adolescent psychiatrists.
Viet Nam: The Committee expressed concern over the situation of with children of immigrants who remain stateless and thus cannot receive support from social services, and the limited access to and quality of education in some regions.
The Concluding Observations for Guatemala are not yet available in English.
Go to the Committee’s session's page for more information.
The Committee against Torture reviewed eight States’ compliance under the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment during its 53rd session, including:
Australia: The Committee expressed concern that detention of migrants continues to be mandatory for all unauthorised arrivals, including for children. In addition, the Committee spoke out against the policy of transferring asylum seekers to the regional processing centres located in Papua New Guinea (Manus Island) and Nauru and the widespread reports of mandatory detention in these centres, including for children.
Croatia: The Committee expressed concern that, although domestic legislation prescribes that juveniles convicted of crimes should be placed in an enclosed institutional facility, such a facility has not been established and children are held in prisons.
Kazakhstan: The Committee recommended that the mandate of the National Preventive Mechanism (NPM) should be broadened to include monitoring of all places of deprivation of liberty such as orphanages, medical social institutions for children with certain disabilities, special boarding schools, and to examine the conditions and treatment of children in penitentiary and non-penitentiary institutions.
The United States: The Committee was concerned that many separated and unaccompanied children continue to be held in group homes and secure facilities, which closely resemble juvenile correctional facilities, about the notable gaps in the protection of juveniles in the criminal justice system, including the placement of children in adult prisons and in solitary confinement, and about numerous, consistent reports that police have used electrical discharge weapons against minors.
The Committee recommended that the US should abolish the sentence of life imprisonment without parole for offences committed by children under 18 years of age, irrespective of the crime committed.
Ukraine: The Committee was concerned at reports concerning the absence of a juvenile justice system.
Sweden: The Committee was concerned at the vulnerable situation of unaccompanied asylum-seeking minors and children of irregular immigrants or undocumented children and at the increasing number of victims of trafficking for the purpose of various forms of exploitation, such as labour exploitation, forced begging, and forced criminality involving children.
The Concluding Observations for Burundi and Venezuela are not yet available in English.
Go to the Committee’s session's page for more information.
The Committee will hold its 68th session from 12 to 30 January 2015.
The following States are set to be examined under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the two Optional Protocols on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC) and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography(OPSC):
- CRC: Colombia, the Dominican Republic, Gambia, Iraq, Jamaica, Mauritius, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkmenistan, the United Republic of Tanzania and Uruguay.
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OPSC: Cambodia, Iraq, Switzerland, Turkmenistan and Uruguay.
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OPAC: Cambodia, Iraq, Turkmenistan and Uruguay.
- Visit the 68th session page to view all the alternative reports submitted by NGOs.
The 21st session of the UPR will take place between 19 and 30 January 2015. The below countries are up for review.
The first links provided are to children’s rights extracts from the State’s first review, including the UPR’s recommendations rejected by States. The second are to CRIN’s country pages where you can find more information on the children’s rights situation in each State.
You can also use our library to search for follow up reports to the UPR that NGOs have submitted, detailing whether or not the State is following the UPR’s recommendations from the first review cycle.
Kyrgyzstan: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Guinea: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Spain: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Kenya: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Guinea-Bissau: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Kiribati: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Lao People’s Democratic Republic: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Lesotho: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Armenia: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Sweden: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Turkey: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Guyana: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Grenada: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
Kuwait: first cycle children’s rights extracts / country page
- 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 violence against women: 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.
Closing
Human Rights Day
On 10 December every year, the UN celebrates Human Rights Day to commemorate the date on which the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) on 10 December 1948.
This year, the UN chose the slogan ‘Human Rights 365’ to represent the idea that every day is Human Rights Day. It celebrates the fundamental proposition in the UDHR that each one of us, everywhere, at all times is entitled to the full range of human rights and that human rights belong equally to each of us.
“Human rights matter because they are dependent on only one thing: being human.”
In his traditional message for the Day, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, highlighted the first words of the UDHR: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights."
“The [UDHR] promises, to all, the economic, social, political, cultural and civil rights that underpin a life free from want and fear,” the High Commissioner stressed.
Zeid recalled that the Declaration is the kernel of the entire international human rights legal system, thanks to which people have “obtained justice for wrongs, and national and international protection for their rights.”
Support for the UDHR continues to grow: this year the Convention against Torture reached its 30th year and the Convention on the Rights of the Child its 25th.
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