CRINmail 174:
In this issue:
The UN Climate change Conference - also known as COP 23 (Conference of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change - UNFCCC) - took place in November, in Bonn, Germany. Strongly supported by the Fijian Presidency, young advocates pushed for more ambitious action on climate change and a stronger role for them in helping shape climate policies and the implementation of the Paris Climate Change Agreement and the Sustainable Development Goals.
The week before, YOUNGO, the youth-constituency to the UNFCCC, organised the 13th Conference of Youth (COY13), an official international event gathering young people who are passionate about climate change topics. During the event, young people called for climate justice and noted the importance of education to address climate change at different levels of governance. Read more in the final outputs of COY13.
A greater focus was also placed on education at COP 23 during the ‘Education day’, where the emphasis was placed on the need for people in all countries and at all levels of society to understand the issue and get involved. The critical role of education in the global climate change response is recognised in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Target 13.3, as well as in article 12 of the Paris Climate Change Agreement.
The UN Environment Assembly also took place in Nairobi, Kenya, in early December. The theme of this three-day meeting was: “Together we can beat pollution”. The Assembly brought together hundreds of policy makers and scientists, business and civil society leaders to identify ways to combat pollution. The ministers pledged a raft of measures, including stepped-up monitoring of pollution, efforts to promote more sustainable lifestyles and to reduce waste and better management of chemicals. Businesses, civil society and individuals all had a responsibility to act, they said.
Meanwhile, UNICEF released a new report on the lifelong implications of pollution on babies. Presenting the report, “Danger in the air”, Executive Director Anthony Lake said that air pollution does not only harm babies’ developing lungs but can also permanently damage their developing brains. The paper reveals that almost 17 million children under the age of one live in some of the most severely affected regions of the world, where outdoor air pollution is at least six times higher than international limits. It adds that the majority of these babies – approximately 12 million – live in South Asia.
The UN General Assembly’s Third Committee concluded its 72nd session, approving draft resolutions on the rights of children, assistance to refugees, persons with disabilities, social development and terrorism.
Estonia, on behalf of the EU and other countries, introduced a draftresolution on the rights of the child focusing on eliminating all forms of violence against children. Current trends show that an estimated 2 million children could be killed by violence from now until 2030. The US tried to limit the scope of the resolution by defending the ‘right’ of parents and schools to physically discipline children. Corporal punishment is still legalin public schools in more than 20 US States and is often used to discipline children with disabilities. The US argued for the resolution to call for a end to “unlawful violence” rather than all forms of violence, implying that there are lawful forms of violence against children. The US also sought to remove language from another resolution granting detained children the legal right to “maintain contact with their family through correspondence and visits from the moment they are arrested”, preferring an amendment with weaker language, indicating detained children should only be “permitted” to maintain such contact with their families. The US failed to garner support for both amendments. However, Egypt, supported by Russia, Singapore and others, did successfully have an amendment to the resolution approved which strengthened references to the importance of parental guidance over children, despite strong opposition from the resolution’s sponsors.
Debate over the role of parents and guardians in relation to women’s and girls’ access to sexual and reproductive health resurfaced when a draft resolution on the rights of persons with disabilities was addressed. Nigeria, on behalf of 43 African countries, proposed an amendment that would strengthen the role of parents and legal guardians in providing guidance to their children. Those objecting to the amendment decried that it upset previously agreed language on this issue, with Argentina arguing that the amendment did not adequately protect the rights of girls and women with disabilities. Like the ‘Rights of the child’ resolution, the General Assembly’s Third Committee voted to approve the amendment. New Zealand, on behalf of Mexico and Sweden, expressed disappointment that a vote had been called, and argued the Committee had sent a message to women and girls with disabilities that they did not have the same rights as others.
The fourth Global Conference on the sustained eradication of child labourtook place in November in Buenos Aires, Argentina. A new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO) was released on this occasion with the aim of ending child labour by 2025, as agreed in the Sustainable Development Goals. While international representatives of governments, employers’ and workers’ organisations, international organisations and members of civil society adopted the Buenos Aires Declaration on child labour, forced labour and youth employment, the children themselves were denied access to the Conference. Some of them addressed a complaint to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, arguing that the ILO Convention on minimum ages for employment was not in line with the Convention. An alternative meeting was also organised in October for working children. This event took place in La Paz, Bolivia, where the government overturned, in 2014, its no-exceptions ban on labour performed by under-14s, enacting in its place legal protections for working children from the age of 10.
Read more on children’s work in CRIN’s submission on the right to work in the context of the SDGs.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families (CMW) released two new General Comments giving guidance to States parties to protect the rights of children in the context of international migration. In the first document, the Committees recall that States should ensure that “children are treated first and foremost as children regardless of their or their parents’ migration status”. They should also implement the key principles of the Convention on the Rights of the Child – such as non-discrimination, the best interests of the child, the right to life, survival & development, the right to be heard and to participate, the right to non-refoulement - in any migration policy. In the second General Comment, the Committees recall that all children under 18 years old should be afforded equal standards of protection, including those above the age of 15 “who are sometimes considered as adults or left with an ambiguous migration status until they reach 18 years of age”. Age assessments should in particular “be carried out in a prompt, child-friendly, gender- sensitive and culturally appropriate manner” and States “should refrain from using medical methods which may be inaccurate, with wide margins of error, and can also be traumatic”. The text also recalls that immigration detention of children should be ended expeditiously and forbidden by law, adding that such prohibition should be fully implemented in practice. Read more here.
The Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration has entered its stocktaking phase, during which it will assess the inputs received so far. Louise Arbour, the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for International Migration, said at the opening of the three-day meeting that the Global compact was “an opportunity to reorient the often-toxic narrative against migrants towards a more accurate narrative on migration that recognizes its overwhelmingly positive impact and is prepared to address its challenges in a sober, realistic way”. Addressing the meeting, UN human rights experts recalled that human rights must be central in all discussions concerning migrants. Special attention needs to be paid to vulnerable groups, such as unaccompanied children or families with children, and migrant children – whether with family or unaccompanied – should never be detained, they added.
More news and reports related to children in the Global Compact for migration:
- UNICEF report: Beyond Borders: How to make the global compacts on migration and refugees work for uprooted children;
- A report by OHCHR on the human rights of migrants at Europe’s borders, highlighting the situation of unaccompanied children confronted by detention, a lack of human rights-compliant child protection services and age assessment;
- Submission of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)which focuses on immigration detention of children which is harmful for individuals, costly for societies and not in the best interest of the child.
The International Organisation for migration (IOM) has released new data on human trafficking which show that almost half of identified cases of child trafficking begin with some family member involvement. According to the data, children are most commonly trafficked into forced sexual exploitation, begging, and domestic work. It also reveals that children are most likely to be coerced into trafficking through physical, sexual and psychological abuse, suggesting the need for more prevention efforts specifically targeting children and their families.
The IOM also warned that human trafficking and exploitation is rife among Rohingya refugees who have fled Myanmar to go to Bangladesh. According to the UN agency, desperate men, women and children are being recruited with false offers of paid work in various industries including fishing, small commerce, begging and, in the case of girls, domestic work. Cases of women and girls being physically or sexually abused are reported as well as a number of adolescent girls, who were promised work as domestic helpers and were forced into prostitution. Forced and early marriages are also taking place among the Rohingya population, said the IOM.
Conducting a visit in Bangladesh, Pramila Patten, the Special Representative of Secretary General on sexual violence in conflict warnedthat Rohingya refugee women and girls were victims of “widespread atrocities, including rape, gang-rape by multiple soldiers, forced public nudity and humiliation, and sexual slavery in military captivity”. According to her statement, alleged perpetrators include the Armed Forces of Myanmar, the Myanmar Border Guard Police and militias composed of Rakhine state Buddhists and other ethnic groups. A special session took place at the Human Rights Council on the 5 December where States adopted a resolution addressing the human rights situation of Rohingya people. The UN High Commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein urged the Council to consider making a recommendation to the UN General Assembly that it establish a new impartial and independent mechanism to assist individual criminal investigations of those responsible. The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women also stepped up on the situation and requested Myanmar to submit an exceptional report within six months, on the situation of Rohingya women and girls from northern Rakhine State.
While this month saw the first UN advocate for the rights of victims of sexual exploitation and abuse brief the press for the first time, allegations of sexual exploitation and abuse of children by UN personnel continue to surface. The latest allegations from the UN Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (MONUSCO) and the UN Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) raise serious questions about how the UN is responding to allegations. The Code Blue campaign has questioned how allegations are being handled, asking why cases are not being referred to the ‘host state’, why the nationalities of the ‘accused’ are withheld, and which state authority the cases are being referred to for criminal accountability. It argues that there is a ongoing conflict of interest between the UN’s role as the employer of the accused, and its role as intermediary for the victim, and double standards in the UN’s responses to allegations made against military versus civilian UN personnel. Code Blue argues that there is still a serious lack of transparency in the UN’s approach, and that it is continuing to abuse its authority.
Victor Madrigal-Borloz has been appointed by the Human Rights Council as the new UN Independent expert on protection against violence and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Madrigal-Borloz will follow Vitit Muntarbhorn, who resigned for health reasons shortly after his appointment.
Both of holders of the mandate are signatories of the additional principles and States’ obligations to the Yogyakarta principles that have been drafted and released by international human rights experts. These principles were originally drafted ten years ago as a universal guide to human rights recalling binding international legal standards in relation to sexual orientation and gender identity. They have been reviewed in order to take stock of jurisprudential and policy developments over the past decade. A few principles are particularly relevant for children, including principle 16, on the right to education and principle 32 on “The right to bodily and mental integrity” which condemns invasive or irreversible medical procedures that are carried out to impose a sexual orientation or a gender identity without the child’s consent.
More information is available on the principles here and here.
Back to top
Laos has made good progress on child protection but must do more to tackle a range of problems including child trafficking, forced marriage, prostitution, online sexual abuse, and sexual exploitation by people travelling in the country, the UN SR on the sale and sexual exploitation of children, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio has concluded after visiting the country. She noted that efforts to combat the sale and sexual exploitation of children had been limited by lack of funding, resources and data. Urgent action was needed to tackle the lack of an integrated child protection system, and to end the current impunity for people trafficking or exploiting children. The SR also noted that there are no child-friendly mechanism to report sexual abuse and exploitation, and no system to refer child victims to support services. Her visit also highlighted the issue of child and forced marriages among some ethnic groups in the northern provinces bordering China and the problem of children in conflict with the law for whom she encouraged the use of prevention strategies such as social support, education and vocational training.
The SR on the rights of indigenous peoples visited Mexico, expressing concern at the situation of indigenous children and youth. The SR noted that many live in a context of extreme poverty, violence and impunity, which raises concerns about malnutrition, infant mortality and human trafficking. The SR also received complaints linked to the forced recruitment of children and young people by organised crime. The absence of law enforcement and other state institutions in remote indigenous communities in zones affected by organised crime and drug production and trafficking, has left many young people the choice to join these groups or to be tortured, disappeared or killed. On education, the SR also reported that a far lower percentage of the indigenous population obtain secondary and higher education.
Concluding his visit to Guatemala, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, expressed concern at the lack of support provided to the families of the victims of a fire that broke out in March at a government-run children’s centre, the Virgin de la Asuncion Safe Home. A total of 41 girls were killed in the incident and 11 others injured, as they were locked in a classroom and unable to escape. The High Commissioner found the families of victims had received no response from the authorities after the incident. He said the abandonment of the Hogar Seguro victims and their families by the Government and the lack of psychological, economic, and legal support for them were deeply concerning. He also addressed scale of poverty in Guatemala, where 46.5 percent of children under five suffer chronic malnutrition, and found that women and children were often the most exposed to the repressive actions of security forces, be they public or private.
The SR on the Right to Food, Hilal Elver concluded her visit to Viet Nam which focused heavily on the impact of malnutrition. The SR noted concern at the lack of a Government school feeding programme, important in ensuring children’s access to nutritious food. While Viet Nam’s progress in combating undernourishment has also been remarkable, the General Nutrition Survey 2009- 2010 shows that one in three children under the age of five are stunted, which can result in chronic nutritional deficiency and negatively affects the development of a child’s brain. Stunting rates among children in remote and inaccessible areas, and among some minority groups, was twice as high as the stunting rate among their peers in areas where normal conditions prevail. The SR also addressed the low number of children being exclusively breastfed until the age of six months, which is beneficial to the child's health and also provides immediate and long-term health protection for mothers. Lastly, the SR noted a rise in the number of overweight children, which needs to be addressed as a matter of priority, and that concerns remain about the well-being of children with disabilities and their families, often a result of the chemical Agent Orange, used extensively in the Viet Nam war.
Back to top
The Human Rights Committee held its 121st session from 16 October to 10 November and reviewed the compliance of seven countries with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR): Australia, Cameroon, Congo, Dominican Republic, Jordan, Mauritius and Romania. For more information, consult the main page of the Committee’s session.
The Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) held its 68th session from 23 October to 17 November and reviewed the compliance of 12 countries with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women: Burkina Faso, North Korea, Guatemala, Israel, Kenya, Kuwait, Monaco, Nauru, Norway, Oman, Paraguay and Singapore. For more information, consult the main page of the Committee’s session.
The Committee against Torture (CAT) held its 62nd session from 6 November to 6 December and reviewed the compliance of eight countries with the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon (in French), Italy, Mauritius, Moldova, Rwanda and Timor Leste. For more information, consult the main page of the Committee’s session.
Call for inputs for the OHCHR’s Study on the implementation of human rights with regard to young people, the identification of cases of discrimination against young people in the exercise of their human rights: deadline 12 January 2018.
Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities: 31 January 2018 for the review of Sudan, Oman, Slovenia, Nepal, Seychelles, Russian Federation and Haiti.
Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: 15 February for the review of Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Mexico, New Zealand, Niger and Spain.
Committee on Migrant workers: 19 March 2018 for the review of Algeria, Guyana, and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines.
Committee Against Torture: 26 March 2018 for the review of Belarus, Czech Republic, Norway, Qatar, Senegal, Tajikistan.
Back to top
THE LAST WORD
“We cannot emphasize enough the increasing vulnerability of young people to the impacts of climate change, notably children. At the same time, children are some of the loudest advocates for climate action. The creativity, the energy and the drive of children and young people can accelerate climate action now to enhance the ambition of the Paris Climate Change agreement.”
- Nazhat Shameem Khan, Climate Ambassador of the Fijian Presidency of COP 23.
Back to top
|
|
