CRINmail 1350

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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Court in France sentences father for corporal punishment

In France a court has for the first time sentenced a parent for physically punishing a child, convicting a father of a "violent gesture combined with humiliation” towards his son and fining him €500. While there is currently no legislation banning corporal punishment of children in France, the Limoges Criminal Court judged the case under the penal code relating to violence against vulnerable individuals.

Following this decision, the Minister for Family Affairs, Dominique Bertinotti, became the first French minister to publicly declare her opposition to corporal punishment of children, saying, "Violence towards children is like domestic violence: we mustn't accept the first blow. We need an important symbolic act so that society can say that smacking is not tolerable and not an educational tool." She fell short, however, of indicating if this would take the form of new legislation. Full story.

France is among the seven States currently under scrutiny by the European Committee of Social Rights for not prohibiting corporal punishment of children, which is still legal in France in the home, alternative care settings, day care, schools and penal institutions.

Juvenile justice reforms and concerns

In the United States, a settlement has been reached in the “Kids for Cash” juvenile sentencing scandal, whereby two judges in the state of Pennsylvania accepted bribes by companies running private juvenile detention centres to send young offenders to their facilities. The scandal emerged in 2009 following claims brought by thousands of juveniles who were wrongfully locked up between 2003 and mid-2008 in the PA Child Care, Western PA Child Care and Mid-Atlantic Youth Services Corp., often for minor offences. Two former Luzerne County judges were later convicted of dishonest and fraudulent acts and respectively sentenced to serve 28 years and 17 years in prison. In 2009 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania overturned 6,500 juvenile-offender convictions issued by one of the judges. For a chronology of developments in the scandal, click here.

The President of the Philippines has signed into law reforms of the juvenile justice system. Amendments prescribe that a child younger than 15 at the time of an offence will be exempt from criminal liability, but may be subjected to a community-based government intervention programme. The same applies to those aged 15-18, unless they are deemed to have “acted with discernment”. 

Separate rules apply to under-15s who commit serious crimes, understood to include murder, kidnapping, arson, illegal detention or robbery resulting in homicide or rape, among others. Such offenders will be mandatorily placed in facilities called Intensive Juvenile Intervention and Support Centres. The legal reforms also create regional councils to monitor the implementation of the law at a local level. Full story.

The amendments have not changed the minimum age of criminal responsibility which is currently at 15, despite previous attempts to lower it to 10.

On the issue generally, the Permanent Representative of Norway to the UN, Geir O. Pederson, expressed his alarm that justice systems are moving backwards, as States around the world continue to lower the age of criminal responsibility below 18 years. He said this at the launch in New York last week of a new report entitled “Creating a Non-Violence Juvenile Justice System” by the International NGO Council on Violence Against Children. Download the report here.

Read CRIN’s discussion paper on how children are criminalised here.

Media responsibility in Roma news

The media should act responsibly in its reporting of news stories concerning Roma people, especially in light of recent cases involving children removed from Roma settlements, warned the European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC). In the past two weeks,  police took a child from a Romani settlement where she lived in Greece, while two other children were removed from their homes in Ireland, one of whom was returned to his Roma parents. All three children either have blonde hair and/or are light-skinned. The full facts in the remaining two cases have still not been established, emphasises the ERRC. Because of this, the organisation has warned that “irresponsible reporting could have severe, negative consequences for Roma families across Europe”. As a possible example, the ERRC reports that skinheads in Serbia recently attempted to remove a two-year-old boy from his Roma parents because he was “not as dark as his parents”. The organisation also points out the discrepancy in the media’s extensive attention to these recent cases compared to minimal news reports on social problems affecting Roma, such as forced evictions from their homes, Roma children being placed into state care, and segregated education. Full story.

Anti-gay law repealed ahead of EU admission

The good news continues in Moldova as the Government repealed anti-gay legislation banning the “promotion” of LGBT issues to children. The law in question, which was similar to Russia’s “gay propaganda” ban, prohibited talking to children about “relationships other than those linked to marriage and the family,” including any information about homosexuality.  The move has been interpreted as a political move, as the State is seeking entry into the European Union. Full story.

Meanwhile in Russia, the MP who introduced into the lower house of parliament a bill seeking to strip gay parents of custody of their children has withdrawn the proposed law. Unfortunately, however, Alexei Zhuravlyov, the author of the bill, aims to revise the bill and resubmit it to the State Duma at a later date. His spokesperson affirms Zhuravlyov’s position on the issue “remains unchanged”. Full story.

In an unprecedented ruling in 2012, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) ruled that a parent’s sexual orientation does not determine their function and role as a parent, and that making a child custody decision based on a parent’s sexual orientation is a violation of international human rights law. More on the story.

Saudi Arabia snubs UN Security Council

In an unprecedented move, Saudi Arabia last week rejected its chance to occupy a seat on the UN Security Council, citing the UN's double standards and failures to do its duty on Syria, nuclear weapons and Palestine. Chad, Nigeria, Chile and Lithuania also secured seats and will serve two-year terms starting 1 January 2014. All elections were unopposed, but the States still had to obtain approval from two-thirds of the General Assembly.

This is in addition to the Security Council’s five permanent members: China, France, the Russian Federation, the United Kingdom and the United States, and five other non-permanent members (currently Argentina, Australia, Luxembourg, Republic of Korea and Rwanda). The five permanent members have a veto power, meaning they can nullify a majority decision by the Council, whereas the non-permanent members do not.

Chad's new position has caused human rights groups to call upon the African country to improve its human rights record, as it is on the UN's list of the worst States when it comes to children's rights violations in armed conflict. Full story. 

Read more about children's rights and the UN Security Council here. 

Exam tweaking and political propaganda in schools

A Jewish secondary school in the United Kingdom has been criticised for hiding questions in a science exam paper because they were deemed to be at odds with religious beliefs.  Following the investigation by the relevant exam board, the Department for Education is now reviewing whether there should be clearer guidelines for faith schools on dealing with similar situation. Full story.

Meanwhile, in Ireland, Atheism is to be added to the school curriculum for all multi-denominational schools, along with Humanism and Agnosticism, from next September. Although this is good news, the move will actually only affect about seven per cent of schoolchildren since the rest of the 93 per cent of students attend Catholic schools. Full story.

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CHILDREN'S RIGHTS WIKI: Spotlight on Sri Lanka

In this week's Children's Rights Wiki we look at the persistent violations of children's rights in Sri Lanka: http://wiki.crin.org/mediawiki/index.php?title=Sri_Lanka

• The high number of teenage pregnancies; 
• Corporal punishment in schools; 
• Trafficking of children; 
• Sexual exploitation of and violence against children; 
• Personal laws discriminating against women, especially regarding the age of marriage; 
• Abduction and recruitment of child soldiers; 
• The institutionalisation of children with disabilities; 
• The impact of labour migration on families; 
• Widespread domestic violence; 
• Adults and children in prisons are not separated; 
• Malnutrition affects nearly one-third of children; 
• Hazardous and abuse conditions of child labour; 
• High rate of school dropout, mainly because of the low quality of education; 
• Discrimination against the Vedda (forest dwelling) community; 
• Discrimination against children of overseas workers. 

For more information on these persistent violations, visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=26494&flag=report

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Ratification: "UP - Universally Promoting child rights" campaign
Organisation: Child Rights Connect (formerly the NGO Group for the CRC) 
Date: 21 October - 21 November 2013
Location: N/A 
More details here. 

Africa: 54th Session of the African Commission 
Organisation: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
Date: 22 October - 5 November 2013
Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
More details here. 

Violence: 19 Days of Activism - Prevention abuse and violence against children and youth 
Organisation: Women's World Summit Foundation
Date: 1-19 November 2013
Location: N/A 
More details here. 

Americas: 149th Session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Right (IACHR) 
Organisation: IACHR
Date: 24 October - 8 November 2013
Location: Washington DC, United States 
More details here. 

Participation: Building an inclusive Europe - the contribution of children's participation 
Organisation: Eurochild
Date: 13-15 November 2013
Location: Milan, Italy 
More details here. 

Child rights: Honouring the child, honouring equity
Organisation: University of Melbourne's Youth Research Centre 
Date: 15-16 November 2013
Location: Melbourne, Australia 
More details here. 

Advocacy: Results in advocacy - an advocate's guide to impact assessment
Organisation: Pamoja Consulting
Date: 3-4 December 2013
Location: London, United Kingdom  
More details here. 

Child labour & Education: M.A.S. in Childrens Rights Module 4 on Child Labour and Education
Organisations: Institut Universitaire Kurt Bösch & University of Fribourg
Event date: 2-6 December 2013
Location: University of Fribourg, Switzerland
More details here.

Child abuse: Preventing sexual abuse of children 
Organisation: Council of Europe
Date: 10-11 December 2013
Location: Madrid, Spain
More details here.

Statelessness: Global Forum on Statelessness - New directions in statelessnes research & policy 
Organisation: Tilburg University
Deadline for presentations: 1 December 2013
Event date: 15-17 September 2014
Location: The Hague, Netherlands 
More details here. 

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EMPLOYMENT

Save the Children Sweden: Thematic Advisor for Child Rights Governance and Organisational Capacity Development, Asia Region
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Application deadline: 3 November 2013
More details here.

Leak of the Week

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