CRINMAIL 88:
October at the UN
In this issue:
To view this CRINMAIL online, click here
Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
Session 61 closes
The Committee on the Rights of the Child concluded its 61st session on 5 October, adopting its report and issuing its Concluding Observations and recommendations on ten reports from seven countries.
The following States were examined on their compliance with:
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (OPSC)
The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (OPAC)
You can see what the Committee has previously said about the above States in our Children’s Rights Wiki.
Further Information
Opportunities for NGOs
NGOs have an important role to play in monitoring the progress made by States in implementing the set of recommendations issued to them by the Committee in their Concluding Observations.
Next CRC Session
The 62nd session of the Committee will be held in Geneva from 14 January to 1 February 2013, during which it will review reports from Guinea, Guyana, Malta, Niue Islands, Philippines, Slovakia, Burkina Faso and the United States.
Elections to the Committee on the Rights of the Child
Lobbying is underway to fill nine vacancies on the Committee on the Rights of the Child. States parties will elect candidates in New York on 18 December 2012. New members will replace those whose term will expire on 28 February 2013. CRIN has been interviewing candidates ahead of the elections to find out who is most suited for the job.
To date, six out of 16 candidates have responded. Read the interviews by clicking on the links below.
Ms. Renate WINTER (Austria):CV / Interview
Mr. Benyam Dawit MEZMUR (Ethiopia):CV / Interview
Ms. Sara DE JESUS OVIEDO FIERRO (Ecuador): CV / Interview (in Spanish)
Mr. Peter GURAN (Slovakia):CV / Interview
Ms. Suzanne AHO (Togo): CV / Interview (in French)
Mr. Awich POLLAR (Uganda):CV / Interview
Complaints mechanism
Gabon and Thailand were the first two States to ratify the new Optional Protocol (OP) to provide a complaints mechanism to the CRC. However, for the OP to enter into force, ten States are required to ratify.
To date, 35 other States have signed the Optional Protocol, indicating their intention to ratify. The States are listed below:
Albania, Andorra, Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Cape Verde, Chile, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Finland, Macedonia, Germany, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Madagascar, Maldives, Mali, Malta, Mauritius, Montenegro, Morocco, Paraguay, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Senegal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Turkey and Uruguay.
Mr Zermatten, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, said he hoped the Protocol could enter into force in 2013 and said that the Committee had been working on the Rules of Procedure during the session (details to follow soon).
Upcoming workshop
The NGO Group and Eurochild are organising a regional meeting for Europe on 13 November in Brussels. The workshop, which follows meetings in Latin America and South East Asia, aims to raise the level of understanding of the Optional Protocol amongst child rights organisations and other relevant partners. Further details here.
- Anita Goh at [email protected]
- Davinia Ovett Bondi at [email protected]
In other news, the Committee has been working on five draft General Comments and provided the following update:
- The Committee would undertake the final reading of the General Comment on the best interest of the child, on the right to leisure, play and participation, and on child rights and the business sector and adopt them at its 62nd session.
- Consultations have been held to review the latest draft of the General Comment on the right to health.
- Work will continue on the Committee’s joint General Comment on harmful practices with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) in February 2013.
View all of the Committee's previous General Comments here.
Other UN Treaty Bodies
Coming up
Russia and Senegal will be among the nine States due to be reviewed during the Committee against Torture’s (CAT) 49th session, taking place from 29 October to 23 November. Find out what States said in their reports here.
Meanwhile, the Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture, which under the Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture (OPCAT) has unrestricted access to all places of detention, including juvenile justice establishments, recently concluded a visit to Moldova. Other visits to take place this year have included Kyrgystan, Argentina and Honduras. Find out how to engage with the Subcommittee here, or view details of the OPCAT Contact Group here.
The 53rd session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) closed on 19 October in New York. The Concluding Observations will be released on the Committee’s webpage shortly.
Finally, the Human Rights Committee’s 106th session opened on 15 October. Find out which States are under review here. The Committee is holding a general discussion on the preparation for a General Comment on Article 9 (Liberty and Security of Person) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. CRIN will participate in the meeting and present a submission. Read the submissions by NGOs here.
Reform process drags on!
Back in June, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Ms Pillay, published her long awaited report on the strengthening of the treaty body system. The report, which follows a series of consultations as part of the “Dublin process” dating back to 2009, provides a basis for decisions by all stakeholders on which proposals to implement and how.
Does it finish here?
No. The High Commissioner’s report was delayed to allow further consultation by States, before being eventually published. In the meantime, an intergovernmental process was launched at the General Assembly, leaving its relationship with the Dublin process and Ms Pillay’s report unclear. On 17 September, during the 66th session of the General Assembly, Member States adopted a resolution to extend the process. More here.
Information by country
To find out what other treaty bodies are saying - or not - about children’s rights in your country, type your country name at the end of www.crin.org/ ; for example, for India, type: www.crin.org/india.
Human Rights Council (HRC)
News update
If you missed our ”September at the UN” CRINMAIL, you can catch up on all the news and outcomes from the 21st session. The organisational session for March’s 22nd session will take place on 10 December.
Universal Periodic Review
The 14th session of the UPR opened in Geneva on 22 October, with the 14 States below set for review. Click on the individual links to view our children’s rights extracts from the pre-review reports submitted by States, UN bodies and NGOs.
Further Information
- Read the recommendations issued from the first cycle of reviews here
- Visit our Children’s Rights Wiki to see the persistent violations in each country
- Visit our 14th session page here
- NGOs with ECOSOC status can now make oral interventions during the plenary sessions. Find out how here.
- Further information and advocacy opportunities here
- Visit upr-info.org
Follow-up and lobbying
Uruguay and Sweden are the latest States to submit mid-term progress reports, highlighting the steps being taken to implement recommendations issued during their initial reviews. Uruguay responded to several recommendations on juvenile justice, providing information on the establishment of the System for Criminal Responsibility of Adolescents (SIRPA) in 2011, the training of juvenile judges and improvements in detention conditions. Read the report here. You can also read Sweden’s mid-term report here.
More than 20 States have now submitted reports, including the United Kingdom and Japan. Find out if your country is among them here. See which NGOs have also submitted reports documenting States’ progress here.
During a side event on 24 October, UPR Info launched its new publication “On the road to implementation”, a study looking into the practice of 66 States to implement recommendations and the progress accomplished two years after the event. The results are encouraging, with 40 per cent of recommendations having triggered actions from States. Read the report here. You can also read CRIN’s report “The Status of Children in the Universal Periodic Review”.
Connect with other NGOs
We have updated our database of all child rights-focused organisations reporting to the UPR (national and international NGOs, Ombudspersons, etc.) The database reveals which coalitions exist in each country.
Pressure building
Controversy emerged during the Human Rights Council’s recent debate on the UPR under Item 6. Russia, along with China, Ecuador, Brazil and Sri Lanka voiced strong criticism concerning the publication of media highlights on the website of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). More here. Further controversy surrounded India’s review when the delegation modified the wording of certain recommendations in order to accept them. More here.
Special Procedures
Recent visits
In a recent visit to the United Kingdom, Ms Shepherd, head of the delegation of the Working Group on People of African Descent, expressed concern over racial bias in the juvenile justice system. She said: “Young people of African descent are entering the criminal justice institutions extremely early, which leads to early and easy criminalization.” More here. Join a debate to stop making children criminals here.
At the end of the Working Group on Business and Human Rights’ visit to Mongolia, its first visit since the Group was created, Ms Jungk voiced concerns about the lack of clarity of the respective roles of the government and business. Without this clarity, she said, “companies and government will continue to finger point at each other ‘to do something’, obscuring who exactly has responsibilities for what, and human rights risk falling in the gap in between.” More here. Find out more about the Group’s upcoming Forum here.
To read all the latest press releases by Special Rapporteurs, including a joint statement urging the government of Pakistan to do more to protect children from extremist groups, visit our information and advocacy opportunities page here.
Upcoming visits
The Special Rapporteur (SR) on trafficking will be visiting the Philippines from 5 - 9 November, the SR on human rights defenders visits Ireland from 19 - 23 Nov, whilst the SR on health is scheduled to visit Japan from 15 - 26 November.
UN General Assembly
The General Assembly (GA) devotes the majority of its human rights-related work to its Third Committee, including the endorsement of the annual report of the Human Rights Council, interactive dialogues with invited Special Procedures and Treaty Body chairpersons; and the negotiation of some 50 human rights resolutions.
The 67th Session of the GA is taking place in New York from 8 October to 28 November, with children’s rights set to be on the agenda in a number of discussions.
Country-specific discussions
Syria continues to be high on the agenda at the UN, as is the situation in northern Mali. For all the latest information, read our latest “Armed Conflict” CRINMAIL here.
CRC Committee’s Annual Report
In this year’s report, the Committee outlined the current trends and challenges, expressing concern over a growing tendency in both developed and developing regions of the world to consider - or even reform - earlier progressive legislation on juvenile criminal justice by lowering the age of criminal responsibility and increasing penalties for children found guilty. More here.
The Committee also asked for appropriate financial support to address the backlog in State reviews.
This year’s Resolution on the Rights of the Child focuses on indigenous children. The resolution is currently in draft form with negotiations over the text taking place. The draft resolution calls on States to “take all appropriate measures to ensure that indigenous children are protected against all forms of discrimination.” It also “recognises the importance for indigenous children to learn and transmit their cultures.” A final version will be available once adopted.
Also on the agenda
The draft resolution also calls for the mandate of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children to be extended for a further three years (and for funding to be allocated from the main budget from 2014). The Special Representative, Ms Santos Pais, presented her report to the GA.
Discussions are taking place on a draft resolution on the death penalty. The resolution calls on States to stop the death penalty for under 18s at the time of the offence. Read also about CRIN’s inhuman sentencing campaign here.
Finally, a resolution is being tabled by Burkina Faso on female genital mutilation. Discussions are ongoing and details will be available on the CRIN website as soon as they become available. See more on harmful traditional practices below.
- For a full list of discussions and coverage, visit our General Assembly 67st Session page.
Further Information
- Visit the website of the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) here.
- Read more about children’s rights at the General Assembly here.
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Harmful practices based on tradition, culture, religion or superstition
All violations of children’s rights can legitimately be described as harmful practices; but the common characteristic of the violations highlighted in a report by theInternational NGO Council on Violence against Children, is that they are based on tradition, culture, religion or superstition, and are perpetrated and actively condoned by the child’s parents or by other adults within the child’s community with parents’ assumed or actual consent.
This short report, launched last week in New York, is designed to complement other current activities in the UN system that are focusing on harmful practices and children, and will hopefully lead to more effective action.
The International NGO Council works closely with the SRSG on Violence against Children, and encourages and maintains NGO involvement at the national, regional, and international levels in follow-up advocacy with governments, UN agencies and others for full implementation of the recommendations of the UN Study on Violence against Children. The Council meets twice a year, including during the UN GA in October.
Useful resources and contacts
Useful Resources
Contacts and Organisations
If you have any feedback on our new CRINMAIL, please write to us at [email protected].
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