CRINMAIL 1215:

In this issue:

To view this CRINMAIL online, click here. 

A call for information from the Council of Europe

The Council of Europe is currently drafting a Recommendation on the Rights and Legal Status of Children and Parental Responsibilities, to be adopted by the Committee of Ministers in 2011. The Recommendation will address issues of family name, succession, identity, parental affiliation and parental responsibilities. It will look to consider the challenges posed by modern innovations like assisted human reproduction and surrogacy, and it will also consider parental responsibility and children’s status and rights in the context of new family forms. Some issues relevant to children's rights in particular include:

• Who should be granted parental responsibility and how should this be decided; 
• How parental responsibility or authority should be exercised;
• What say should children have in the decisions made about their lives; and
• How children's voices can be heard and taken into account both in the legal process and in family decision-making.

The Group of Experts responsible for drafting the new Recommendation considers it important that their work be informed by children's views and perspectives, and child participation has been increasingly embraced in the Council of Europe's “Building a Europe for and with Children” programme.

With this in mind, the Council of Europe wants to hear from you about the views and experiences of children and young people and adults on any of the topics addressed by the Recommendation. The Council is interested not only in research that you might be able to undertake, but also in any relevant research of which you are already aware. There are many ways you can help, including:

• Researchers can send publications or other documentation on the views of children and young people on the issues covered by the Recommendation;
• Organisations working with and for children can submit relevant information that has come to their attention via other processes. For example, Commissioners or Ombudsmen for Children might be aware of the concerns of children via their complaints mechanisms or other ‘listening’ exercises;
• Children and young people and/or their representatives or advocates can also tell the Council of Europe directly what they think about these issues.

Please contact the Council at [email protected] if you are able to assist or have questions about participation, or visit their Family Law homepage for more information. 

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Latest news and reports

Update on North Africa and the Middle East protests

Civilian lives continue to be lost amid government crackdowns on pro-democracy protests across North Africa and the Middle East. 

In the latest in a series of UN measures to address the human rights situation in Libya where at least 3,000 people are estimated to have been killed by government forces, the UN General Assembly this week adopted a resolution that has suspended Libya from the Human Rights Council. Full story.        

This follows another resolution adopted last week during an emergency session at the Council referring Libya to the International Criminal Court, and imposing sanctions against Libyan leaders, including an arms embargo, travel bans and an asset freeze. Full story.

Yet as civilians mobilise to form an armed offensive against Libyan security forces and call on the UN for intervention, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has vowed to crush protesters and defeat any foreign assistance they may receive. Full story. 

A revelatory statement by Libya’s former Minister of Justice, Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, has revealed that the Gaddafi regime is also responsible for deliberately infecting more than 400 children with AIDS in the late 1990s. Until now, six Bulgarian medics were thought to be responsible for the incident, for which they ended up spending more than eight years in prison. Full story.

Meanwhile in Yemen anti-government protests demanding an end to President Saleh’s 32-year rule are intensifying across the country after six weeks of rallies. The number of casualties, however, continues to increase. So far 26 people are reported to have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces or Saleh loyalists, while thirty people were reported to have been injured in clashes last week in the eastern city of Hodeidah. Full story.

In the neighbouring Gulf sultanate of Oman, civilian protests are nearing the end of their first week of demands for greater employment and political reforms. Yet as with other countries in the region, civilian lives have been claimed. Although there are conflicting reports on the current death toll, staff at a state hospital said six people have died, while the health minister has put the toll at one. In a further incident on Tuesday, stone-throwing demonstrators were first attacked with batons and tear gas and then with live fire in the northern port of Sohar. Full story.

Seemingly inspired by the protests in the Middle East, pro-reform protesters have also mobilised in China in what has been coined the “Jasmine Revolution”, consisting of simply strolling through designated places in order to get around the country’s strict security measures. However, an army of uniformed police, plainclothes agents and a heavily armed SWAT team in full body armour quickly descended onto the scene, shoving peaceful protesters along for “loitering”. Journalists were even attacked by security forces, with one reporting that he ended up in hospital after being punched, kicked, hit with broom handles and dragged along the ground by his feet. Full story. 

The turmoil continues

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has voiced his concern over the worsening violence and human rights situation in Côte d’Ivoire, condemning the escalation of violent clashes between rival groups and threats to peacekeepers and civil society. Full story. 

Women and children have been the most affected by post-election conflict in Côte d’Ivoire, according to a recent UN report, which also identifies areas for urgent and immediate action, including health, water and sanitation, nutrition and the safety of the population. More on the story. 

In the latest incident involving children, armed men have blocked some 60 families without food or water from leaving a church in the commercial city of Abidjan. Full story. 

Media safeguards 

A coalition consisting of Save the Children, South Africa's Media Monitoring Africa and Zambia's Media Network on Child's Rights and Development, among others, have launched a new project which aims to ensure children's rights are respected in the media, and a more representative and ethical journalism is practised in both Zambia and South Africa. Entitled ‘Children and Media: Championing Best Practice’, the project responds to the ‘unethical’ operations of most African media houses, which sensationalise children's stories to boost audience numbers and profits.
Full story. 

Armed conflict

UNICEF has released its 2010 annual review on children affected by armed conflict in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory. It reports that 11 Palestinian children were killed and 360 injured last year in Gaza and the West Bank. Children's rights violations include detainment and ill-treatment, and in some cases even torture, during arrest and interrogations by Israeli security forces; search and arrest operations involving children as young as seven in East Jerusalem; and children being shot at by Israeli guards for collecting rubber near the Buffer Zone in Gaza, hoping to earn some money to help their poverty-stricken families. Download the review and previous newsletters here. 

Child marriage

In Malawi, girls as young as nine-years-old are often forced to marry men more than seven times their age by their own parents, a problem which can lead to premature pregnancy, maternal death, and jeopardise a girl's right to education. In areas of the country where local chiefs are still the custodians of culture, organisations like the Thalire Women’s Forum are working together with chiefs to educate communities about the rights of the girls, aware that convincing chiefs is key to challenging harmful practices within communities. Some senior chiefs are also campaigning to end these practices. Full story.

The Child Rights Legal Centre (CRLC) in Pakistan has urged the government to increase the marriageable age for girls from 16 to 18 years in order to eliminate gender discrimination in legislation which currently sets the minimum age of marriage for boys at the higher age of 18 years. The CRLC has also expressed its concern about how Sharia law uses puberty to determine if a child is of marriageable age, which means that the issue of child marriage persists across Pakistan. It has additionally urged that punishment for an adult male marrying a child be made more severe than the current penalty of one month imprisonment or a fine of 1,000 rupees. Full story.

Meanwhile in Afghanistan, women’s advocates say that rules being drafted by the Afghan government to bring women’s shelters under State control will place shelters under siege and deter the most vulnerable women and girls, including child brides and those in violent situations, from seeking refuge. The new guidelines propose requiring a woman in shelter to justify her decision to seek refuge to an eight-member government panel, which would hold the power to determine if she needs to be in a shelter or should be sent to jail or back home, where she would be at risk of further violence and even death. Under the new guidelines, women in shelter would also be subjected to a “virginity test,” which is widely considered to be a response to the belief that women’s shelters are fronts for brothels. Full story.

Sign Women for Afghan Women's petition to save women's shelters in Afghanistan here.

Questionable laws

In what will be the first major case involving child protection against State abuse in the United States in more than two decades, the US Supreme Court will address the question of how the Constitution should be applied differentially to children. The aim of the hearing is to highlight conflicts between constitutional rights and the need to protect children from, for example, being submitted to investigative measures such as interrogation and strip searches, generally acceptable for adults but considered abusive for children. Full story. 

Also in the United States, in a further move to tighten restrictions on immigrants and their families, Arizona lawmakers have proposed harsh new measures to deny school enrollment and health care to illegal immigrants and challenge the birthright citizenship of children born to parents illegally present in the state. Full story. 

Abduction and illicit adoption

In Argentina, two former military dictators and six other military figures have gone on trial for the kidnapping of babies seized from political prisoners and opponents during the country's Dirty War period. The newborns of pregnant female prisoners, who would give birth in clandestine detention and torture centres, would be taken away minutes after birth and handed to military officers or their relatives, while the mothers were simply killed, many of them dropped alive from military planes into the sea. Around 500 babies were stolen in this way, according to the campaign group Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, whilst 30,000 alleged dissidents were “disappeared”. Full story. 

Young people have their say

According to a recent survey conducted in Turkey by the country’s Children’s Rights and Development Association, children and adolescents want to be treated as individuals and with respect in spite of their young age. The findings reveal that young people are unhappy with the treatment they generally receive from adults, with a high percentage citing verbal outbursts and physical violence. The poll was conducted ahead of the first Children’s Rights Congress, held in Istanbul over the past weekend, and included the participation of 4,000 students aged between 11 and 18. Its organisers say the congress provided a platform for children to voice their needs and expectations, with a total of 118 child delegates and 113 adults presenting their views. Full story.

Children's rights manifesto

The Labour Party of Ireland has prepared a children's manifesto in the run-up to the national elections, in which it addresses several key issues including education at all levels, improved protection of children in State care, and child poverty. To this end, the manifesto proposes the development of a national literacy strategy, an increase in the social care workforce, and introducing universal health insurance, as well as urgently holding the children’s rights referendum. Download the manifesto here.

Questioning ethics on homosexuality 

In a ruling by the High Court of the United Kingdom, two judges have questioned how foster parents' anti-gay beliefs can potentially affect children under their care. The case was brought to the High Court by a Christian couple and Derby City Council, which were jointly seeking guidance on the basis of alleged religious discrimination after social workers questioned the couple’s anti-homosexual views. The two judges affirmed that they were not ruling against particular beliefs – but against the discriminatory effects of some beliefs – religious or non-religious –, with one reporter commenting how children are extremely sensitive to these kinds of attitudes, noting that even a chance negative comment about homosexuality can be traumatic and lasting, and even have the potential to foster intolerance in children. Full story. 

On the road to adulthood

UNICEF has released it annual flagship report entitled ‘The State of the World's Children 2011 – Adolescence: An Age of Opportunity’, which this year focuses on the development and rights of more than a billion children aged 10 to 19 worldwide, as they face the critical transition from childhood to adulthood and confront the challenges it presents. The report includes analysis and data on issues like nutrition, health, HIV and AIDS, education, child protection and demographic and economic indicators, plus how to accelerate and elevate adolescents' fight against poverty, inequality and gender discrimination. 

New website release 

The Better Care Network, an organisation dedicated to research on children without adequate family care, has revamped its website which now provides an online library of resources, allowing users to search the database by region, country, or topic for cutting edge and relevant research, tools, documents, events, conferences, and job postings on issues related to the protection of children without adequate parental care. The site also includes a discussion forum for further dialogue as well as an online toolkit for social work practitioners planning for and delivering better care for children. 

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Forthcoming events

Health: ‘Quality in Alternative Care’
Date: 4-6^th April 2011
Location: Prague, Czech Republic  
Organisation: SOS Children’s Villages International 
More details here. 

Migration: ‘Workshop on transnational family making: children, young people and migration’
Date: 6-9^th April 2011
Location: Florence, Italy 
Organisation: European University Institute
More details here. 

Education: ‘The Right to Education: Reaching every child’
Date: 13-16^th April 2011
Location: New Orleans, Louisiana, USA  
Organisation: Association for Childhood Education International (ACEI)
More details here. 

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Employment

UNICEF: Child Protection Specialist (Emergencies)

UNICEF is calling for applications for the position of Child Protection Specialist (Emergencies) to be based in Dakar.

Interested applicants should register at www.unicef.org/about/employ in the e-Recruitment system quoting E-VN-2011-000280. 

Application deadline: 11 March 2011

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SOS Children's Villages: Messaging Advisor

SOS Children's Villages is accepting applications for the role of Messaging Advisor to work on fund development and communications. The position will be based in either Vienna or Innsbruck.

For further information, click here. 

Application deadline: 20 March 2011 

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Human Rights Watch (HRW): Researcher in the Children’s Rights Division

Human Rights Watch is accepting applications for the role of Researcher within the Children’s Rights Division. The position will preferably be based in HRW’s London or Geneva office. 

For more detailed information on the role and application process, click here. 

Application deadline: 20 March 2011 

**Jargon Quiz**

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