Children's rights at the United Nations CRINmail 150 - Human Rights Council session 31
CRINmail 150
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This week CRIN is at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, reporting live from its 31st session with daily round-ups of each day’s discussions on children’s rights. We will be monitoring where children’s rights are discussed - or left out of debates - throughout the week.
Wednesday featured answers from the Special Rapporteur (SR) on torture and the SR on the sale of children on their annual reports, the presentation of reports from the SR on the right to privacy and the SR on freedom of religion or belief, and a joint report from the SR on peaceful assembly and the SR on extrajudicial executions. Side events took place examining the effects on and reasons for torture of women and launching a new initiative to end violence against children.
Discussion of the report by the SR on torture
Wasting no time, the SR on torture quickly dismissed criticisms of his report as creating a hierarchy of victims, as some States had alleged. Juan E. Méndez explained that his report did quite the opposite, saying: “We don’t want to forget those victims who are sometimes left by the wayside when it comes to torture and inhuman and degrading treatment,". The SR highlighted the need to reach an agreement on how States treat prisoners who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or intersex (LGBTI), and a consensus on minimum rules on the treatment of LGBTI individuals and women and girls in detention.
Discussion of the report by the SR on the sale of children
The SR on the sale of children said that the private sector plays a key role in facilitating child abuse, encompassing hotel staff, taxi drivers and others who all play a part in the supply chain. She explained that it is essential for States to work with the private sector using guidelines and human rights principles. The SR further noted that unaccompanied migrants are at serious risk of experienced smugglers, and a lack of specialists makes it difficult to track and help child victims of trafficking. She also noted that children should not be criminalised for making sexual content when it is not abusive, saying that being placed on a register of sex offenders for mutually consenting activity was not in children's best interest. The SR closed by signalling her support for the recommendations of the independent review panel on the Central African Republic relating to sexual abuse of children by peacekeepers, stressing that time is of the essence and that the safety of the children must come first.
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Interactive dialogue with SR on privacy and the SR on freedom of religion or belief
Discussion of SR on privacy's annual report
Joseph Cannataci, SR on the right to privacy presented his mandate's first report to the Human Rights Council citing several concerns, including security surveillance, open data and big data analytics, and genetics. One of the issues highlighted in the report is to have protections against infringements of the right to privacy by governments and by others actors. Several states expressed their agreement on this issue, also asking questions about corporations which sometimes have more data on citizens than their governments do. Many States complained that the SR's report was published too late to allow a proper examination, though Cannataci claimed this was due to the a need to scrutinise the United Kingdom's Investigatory Powers Bill.
Discussion of SR on freedom of religion or belief's annual report
Heiner Bielefeldt, SR on freedom of religion or belief said that belief is often key to a person's identity stressing that freedom of belief and freedom of expression are not in opposition to each other, but rather are closely related rights, and mutually reinforce one another in practice. The SR noted that a fair representation of different minorities in the media is essential, that inter-religious charity work can be significant, for example in providing provisions for refugees, and reiterated the importance of allowing religious pluralism within every State. Several delegations decried the findings of the SR's report, with Saudi Arabia noting that the SR had not mentioned that religions should be protected against criticism and Libya shocking the room with a reference to the Holocaust, asking if six million Muslims would have to die for there to be additional protections of their faith.
To read CRIN's response to the SR on freedom of religion or belief's annual report click here.
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Joint report from the SR on the right to freedom of assembly and the SR on extrajudicial executions
The SR on the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the SR on extrajudicial executions presented their joint report in today’s afternoon session. A robust defence of the right to assembly was presented and it was reiterated that the right to assembly should not be viewed as a threat, but as a means of dialogue that States should engage with, and that it should be enjoyed without restriction. The SR on peaceful assembly closed by saying that no one should be held criminally for organising or participating in a peaceful assembly, while Russia labelled the report as “questionable”.
The SR on torture led a panel of experts describing how gender bias and stereotypes are prevalent everywhere, which needs to be taken into account when considering how women and girls become victims of torture. The panelists agreed that by not treating women or LGBTI prisoners differently, according to their particular needs, States became complicit in violence and torture against them. The panel touched on the humiliating and invasive body searches carried out on women and LGBTI persons, usually with no consideration of their personal history or circumstances and described how women are often made to provide sexual favours for basic necessities, including food. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children, Marta Santos Pais, focused on access to justice for children, emphasising that girls have a harder time than anyone in pursuing justice, particularly when they are raped as they are frequently bullied or not believed by authorities.
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Side event: High Time to End Violence Against Children
In the year of the 10th anniversary of the UN Study on Violence against Children, today saw the launch of the High Time initiative. The study was deeply rooted in human rights and, sadly, its findings are still relevant today. Paulo Pinheiro, who led the Study, highlighted how it had been a long journey for him, with many of the most vulnerable children still waiting for basic legal protections from violence. Peter Newell of the International NGO Council on Violence Against Children highlighted that the visibility of the issue has not shamed enough States to act to end all forms of violence. He stated that the real task is to insist on the urgency to achieve prohibition, concluding: “It has always been high time to end violence against children”. The panel also heard from Abraham Keta, the Liberian winner of the 2015 children's peace prize and a host of other well-known children's rights activists.
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Organised by several UN bodies
10:00-12:00
Room XXIII
Human Rights and 'Preventing violence extremism'
Organised by ARTICLE 19
12:00-13:00
Room XVIII
Children in Middle East wars
Organised by Child Foundation
17:00-18:00
Room XXII
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For God's sake!
State sensitivities ran high in today's discussions at the Human Rights Council, where blasphemy laws were the subject of much debate. Despite the SR on freedom of religion insisting that plurality of religion is vital in a tolerant society, and that using the right to freedom of expression positively to challenge views that groups might find offensive is a good thing, a number of States insisted that there had to be limits on criticising or 'insulting' religion when it comes to freedom of expression. In particular, Saudi Arabia, perhaps unfamiliar with the principle of free speech, expressed its disappointment that the SR did not recommend criminalisation of those who insult religion. And seemingly coming from a pacifist stance, the Pakistani delegation said insulting religion is “an act of incitement to violence”.
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