CRINMAIL 157:

In this issue:

Click here to read the CRINMAIL online.

Reports of crimes against humanity in Syria

Last Friday, the UN Committee against Torture voiced deep concern about massive human rights violations in Syria, including the reported torture of children, as the Government’s violent crackdown against protesters continues.

The violations include cases of torture and ill-treatment of detainees; rife or systematic attacks against civilian population, including the killing of peaceful demonstrators and the use of excessive of force against them; and the persecutions of human rights defenders and activists. Read More.

The deteriorating situation in the Syrian Arab Republic prompted the Human Rights Council to establish an independent international commission of inquiry to investigate alleged violations of human rights since March 2011.

From the end of September until mid-November 2011, the commission held meetings with Member States from all regional groups, regional organisations, including the League of Arab States and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, non-governmental organisations, human rights defenders, journalists and experts. It interviewed 223 victims and witnesses of alleged human rights violations, including civilians and defectors from the military and the security forces.

The commission said that at least 256 children had been killed by government forces.

The substantial body of evidence gathered by the commission indicates that these gross violations of human rights have been committed by Syrian military and security forces since the beginning of the protests in March 2011. The commission is gravely concerned that crimes against humanity have been committed in different locations in the Syrian Arab Republic during the period under review.

It calls upon the Government of the Syrian Arab Republic to put an immediate end to the ongoing gross human rights violations, to initiate independent and impartial investigations of these violations and to bring perpetrators to justice. Read full report.

UN process to end recruitment of child soldiers

During her recent visit to Somalia, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative (SRSG) for Children and Armed, Conflict Radhika Coomaraswamy, secured a commitment from the President and Prime Minister to enter a process to end the recruitment and use of children by the Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

Somalia is one of the two countries in the world that have not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Ms. Coomaraswamy told reporters that the transitional Government agreed to appoint military and Government focal points to develop action plans on children associated with the TFG, and also committed to accelerate the ratification of the CRC and its optional protocols.

The UN supports programmes for the reintegration of children associated with armed forces and groups. Such programmes promote rehabilitation of children through counselling, back-to-school initiatives and skills-based training, including family reunification.

UNICEF said that 24 children were killed in conflict in Somalia in October, nearly double the confirmed child killings of every other month this year. UNICEF said 58 children were also confirmed to have been injured in October, the highest number this year. Read more.

Both the TFG and Al Shabaab are listed in the Secretary-General’s annual report on children and armed conflict as recruiters and users of child soldiers. Read full article.

The Security Council in June expanded the criteria for offences that can lead to sanctions in Somalia to include grave violations against children. Read CRIN's follow up to the adoption of the Security Council Resolution 1998.

In the Central African Republic (CAR), a rebel group signed an agreement to release an estimated 1,500 child soldiers.

The SRSG said that up to six groups could release the child soldiers within their ranks over the next year.

Ms. Coomaraswamy said the recent deals were the result of a combination of mounting international pressure on the armed groups and a growing awareness among the groups of the need to end the practice.

But she warned that the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), the Ugandan rebel force whose members have caused havoc in parts of the CAR, was still active and harming local communities. Read full article.

To read more on the Security Council's work on Children's Rights, read CRIN's page on the Security Council.

State violence

On the eve of Universal Children's Day, Bahrain buried another child killed by the security forces as part of the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters.

The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights (BCHR) has documented the deaths of five children: a 15-year-old boy who was shot dead while playing outside his house; another boy of 14 who died after being hit by a tear gas canister shot at close range; a third teenage boy who was killed with a shotgun, a weapon which is illegal in Bahrain; a fourth teenager was run over by a security force vehicle; and finally the youngest, a 6-year-old boy, who died from suffocation after police fired tear gas into his house.

The BCHR denounces that all five cases remain in impunity. So far 188 children have also been detained by security forces since protests began earlier in the year. Full story. 

Meanwhile in Yemen, President Ali Abdullah Saleh has signed a plan, brokered by the country's Gulf Arab neighbours, under which he will step down and end his 33-year rule. In return, Saleh will get immunity from prosecution for the State's role in the death of hundreds of pro-democracy protesters, including at least 75 children. Protesters say they will reject any deal that grants Saleh immunity. Full story. 

The Asian Centre for Human Rights has released a fact-finding report on juvenile justice in the Indian-administered state of Jammu and Kashmir. It reveals how young offenders are routinely detained under the Public Safety Act (1978) that provides for up to two years of preventive detention, despite a ruling by the Supreme Court of India that the Juvenile Justice Act has supremacy over all other acts in relation to offences committed by children. The report also documents copious other cases where juveniles have been detained without a trial or having even been presented before a court. Also documented in the report is how girls in conflict with the law are detained in police cells or prisons because the state does not have a single juvenile home for girls. Download the report. 

CRIN has also produced a report detailing the legality of inhuman sentencing of children in India, which finds discrepancies between Indian federal law and state legislation in Jammu and Kashmir. It reveals that capital punishment of child offenders is unlawful in India except possibly in Jammu and Kashmir, and that life imprisonment of child offenders is prohibited under federal law, yet allowed in Jammu and Kashmir. Download the report here. 

South Sudan: UN mission presses for all child soldiers to be released

The United Nations peacekeeping operation in South Sudan is calling on the country’s military to ensure that all child soldiers within its ranks are released after more than 50 child soldiers between the age of 13 and 17 were let go last week.

The children had been conscripted in April into the Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA), the former rebel group that became the country’s military, but were demobilized last week by the South Sudan Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration Commission.

“However, we still call upon the SPLA to ensure that all children within their ranks are released,” said Hazel De Wet, the senior child protection officer for the UN peacekeeping operation. “Children should be in schools and not military barracks.” Read full article.

Statement on the occasion of Anniversary of the CRC

To mark the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child on 20 November, Ms. Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Secretary-General’s Special Representative (SRSG) for Children and Armed Conflict issued a joint statement with Hervé Ladsous, Under-Secretary-General for Peacekeeping Operations and Susana Malcorra, the Head of the Department of Field Support at the Under-Secretary-General level.

The statement was issued to remember the children growing up in wars throughout the world, and to reaffirm the commitment of the SRSG and UN peacekeeping operations to stand up for their rights and to take firm action.

The statement highlighted that “conflict often impacts children disproportionately. The lives of hundreds and thousands of girls and boys are at the mercy of armed rebels groups who raid villages, schools, and hospitals. They separate families, and enslave children in remote bush camps. Terrorism makes children a primary target of modern warfare, including through their use as suicide bombers.” Read full statement.

THE LAST WORD

Back to top