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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Controlling children’s right to access information
Conservative commentators in Hong Kong, China are using anti-gay rhetoric to criticise a youth club for offering counselling to children struggling with their sexuality, which they claim is “brainwashing” the children and “siding with sexual minorities”. "We question why they [the Boys' and Girls' Clubs Association of Hong Kong] would show blatant support to sexual minorities rights groups," said Leticia Lee See-yin, head of the conservative group Justice Alliance. "They are [saying] being gay is fine. It's not fair to brainwash impressionable children," she added. In response, Brian Leung, convenor of LGBT rights group the Big Love Alliance, says Ms Lee is "instigating hatred and discrimination" and "playing up fear of the unknown... We are talking about a reputable, long-standing NGO, [which has] been caring for the underprivileged and minorities for years. The counselling they provide… is one of a kind."
Adding to growing restrictions on children’s right to information in Russia is a new draft law that seeks to “protect” children from information that is considered “unpatriotic”. The bill, which aims to restrict children’s access to information that "denies or distorts patriotism" - which it defines as "love for the fatherland, devotion to it, striving to serve its interests through one's actions” - proposes amending Russia's law on child protection from information deemed detrimental to their well-being. Among that law’s existing provisions is a ban on the promotion of homosexuality.
Turkey has designed a website for children which claims to protect them from what the government calls “the Internet’s harmful ways”. Dubbed the “Turkish Twitter”, the Turkey Science Academy's (TUBA) new Child Platform Project is meant to attract children aged between five and 13 by collecting content that they will find interesting, and in turn discourage them from using other internet sites that are unsupervised. However, children will need their parents’ permission to register on the site - which will also allow parents to control their children’s online activities - and all real-time conversations, digital games, messaging, written and visual materials will be monitored by a pedagogical team.
Critics of the project have addressed its possible impact on children’s rights. "This project may well lead to an unwanted adult intervention in the lives of young children. Necessary measures should be taken to guarantee children's right to privacy, protection of their personal information as well as their rights to express their views freely," said Adem Arkadas-Thibert, a children's rights policy and advocacy officer at the International Children's Centre at Bilkent University. Reflecting on the risks the digital world poses for children, Seda Akco, lawyer and founder of the child and human rights consultancy group Humanist Bureau, underlined the importance of "providing children with skills for analysing what they see and listen to… We cannot protect them by disallowing the access. Rather, we should disallow adults of abusive behaviours, while teaching children to protect themselves within the context of basic education."
Violence prevention, reform & accountability
Mexico’s Roman Catholic Church has for the first time filed a criminal complaint against a priest who is accused of sexual abuse against a 16-year-old boy. The case marks a departure from the Church’s long-held global resistance to reporting abuse cases to civil authorities. The Archdiocese of San Luis Potosi in central Mexico has also offered to cooperate with the state attorney general's office in the investigation of the abuse claims. The Citizens' Initiative Association, a Mexican child abuse victims' support group, says it has received complaints that dozens of other youths were abused by the priest in this case, and that the Church had been informed in the past.
Further Information:
Many adults and children in South East Asia have limited understanding of what constitutes child sexual abuse and how to prevent it, according to a new report produced as part of the Child Safe Tourism campaign which aims to combat the sexual exploitation of children in travel and tourism. The study found that most children and adults had a narrow understanding of child sexual abuse, only recognising penetrative rape of girls as such, while ignoring other sexually abusive acts, such as inappropriate touching or exposure to pornography or sexual abuse against boys. Out of the more than 600 children and adults in Thailand, Vietnam, Lao PDR and Cambodia who were interviewed in the study, parents were the group that had the lowest levels of understanding on the issue.
More than 100 States still allow for children to be physically punished in penal institutions, day care centres, the home, and as a criminal sentence, according to a new report by the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children. The report “Childhood free from corporal punishment – changing law and practice” marks the 35th anniversary of Sweden’s pioneering ban on all corporal punishment of children. It contains a table on the legality of corporal punishment in all settings in all States, facts and figures on reform in all regions, up-to-date analyses of corporal punishment coverage by human rights treaty bodies and in the Universal Periodic Review, and the latest research and growing faith-based support for prohibition. It also includes a new checklist of actions that can be taken by States collaboratively to work towards universal prohibition of violent punishment of children.
With particular regard to the Middle East and North Africa, a report by the Secretariat General of the League of Arab States evaluates the region’s implementation of the recommendations of the UN Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children. Among other features, the report evaluates Arab States’ respective legislation on the protection of children from all forms of violence, safe reporting mechanisms available to children to report violence, the status of existing independent monitoring mechanisms, and data-collection systems containing violence-related information.
Children in forced labour
Ahead of the World Day Against Child Labour to be celebrated next week on 12 June, the International Labour Organization has published a new report on forced labour, which estimates that over a fourth of the world’s 21 million forced labourers are children. The report focuses on the vast profits made from forced labour, the majority of which comes from commercial sexual exploitation, while the rest from forced economic exploitation, including agriculture and domestic work, among others.
The Uzbek-German Forum for Human Rights has published its 2013 report on Uzbekistan’s cotton harvest, which analyses the exploitative system of forced labour in the country’s cotton sector which affects over a million children and adults every year. While the Uzbek government said in 2012 that it would no longer recruit children younger than 15 years old to pick cotton, the organisation says that the extra burden has since been placed on 16- to 17-year-olds and adults.
Harmful practices in the spotlight
Although the minimum age for marriage is set at 18 in Morocco, the country’s Family Code gives family court judges the authority and discretion to approve the marriage of a child if the judge finds it to be in the “best interest” of the child. This legal loophole may account for the massive rise in the number of girls married before the age of 18 over the last decade during which the Family Code has been in force. According to figures by the Ministry of Justice and Liberty, in 2004 more than 18,300 girls younger than 18 were married, while in 2013 the number was 35,152. Earlier this year, following intensive lobbying and widespread social anger over the suicide of a child bride, the Moroccan parliament repealed article 475 of the Penal Code which allowed for a rapist to evade prosecution is he married his underage victim.
In response to the high rates of child marriage across Africa, where the practice affects one in three girls, the African Union has launched a two-year campaign to accelerate efforts to end child marriage across the continent. Organised in partnership with UNICEF and the UN Population Fund, the campaign aims to work with national governments to raise awareness of child marriage and its harmful impact on children, as well as developing strategies for the effective implementation of legislation prohibiting the practice. Africa is home to nine of the ten countries with the highest rates of child marriage in the world, namely Niger (75 per cent), Chad and the Central African Republic (68 per cent), Guinea (63 per cent), Mozambique (56 per cent), Mali (55 per cent), Burkina Faso and South Sudan (52 per cent), and Malawi (50 per cent).
Nepal’s response to witchcraft accusations and persecution (WAP) against both children and adults has been poor in comparison to other forms of human rights violations, said the Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network (WHRIN) in a new country report. The organisation also says that while there are laws criminalising violence against the person generally, “WAP is rarely reported, rarely prosecuted - and if prosecuted, rarely are perpetrators punished.” This report follows what may have been the first-ever report into the global scale of WAP, muti killings and human sacrifice, which was launched by WHRIN at the UN Human Rights Council in March.
Migrant children’s rights placed on hold
Controversy continues in the Netherlands over dozens of child asylum-seekers who were refused permission to stay in the country because of technicalities that exclude them from a recent amnesty for child refugees. To qualify for the amnesty, children should have lived in the country for at least five years and been under national government supervision during their stay. The regulations also require asylum applicants to be under the age of 21 and have lied about their identity to officials no more than once. But last week the Dutch children’s ombudsman, Marc Dullaert, released information on the cases of 54 children whose asylum applications were rejected.Some of these children were born in the Netherlands, but nonetheless face deportation because one of their parents was not under continuous government supervision. Three children who were also born in the country also face deportation because after being evicted from a refugee centre in 2010, they were looked after by a charity, so are not considered to have been under national government supervision. Two other children who have lived in the Netherlands for ten years are also not covered by the amnesty because they were registered with their local council instead of the national government. Over 300 local mayors have signed a petition calling for change in the way the amnesty is being applied.
No special protection is being given to the almost 200 children being held in the Australian offshore immigration detention centre in Nauru, according to children's rights organisation Plan International Australia. The organisation says that the government's decision to detain the children is in itself a serious breach of its responsibilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Moreover, detention places the children at risk of violence, neglect and physical or sexual abuse, the organisation said.
The determine how the country’s immigration detention impacts the health, well-being and development of child detainees, the Australian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has launched a government inquiry into the issue. The inquiry follows up on a 2004 study which found that immigrant detention was “fundamentally inconsistent” with the country’s international human rights obligations and that detention for long periods created a "high risk of serious mental harm." The new inquiry seeks to determine what changes, if any, have been made since 2004. Gillian Triggs, AHRC President, hopes the inquiry will align the nation's immigration detention practices with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which declares "the best interests of the child" a primary consideration in "all actions regarding children."
Meanwhile in the Caribbean, there have been more than 440 maritime incidents of boats carrying migrants since 2010, involving about 15,190 people, including many children, of which 240 were killed and 176 are missing at sea, according to figures by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The victims of these incidents are mostly migrants from Haiti, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and other countries of the Caribbean and South America, according to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). Felipe González, Rapporteur on the Rights of Migrants of the IACHR, said that these cases “highlight the level of desperation faced daily by many people who are forced to migrate because of the insecurity and lack of enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights." Mr González also said that with the current tightening of immigration policies, and without national measures that respond to the push and pull factors of migration, the deaths and disappearances of migrants will continue.
Starting to roll out summer curfews for children
Towns and cities across France are expected to renew their summer curfews banning the presence of children on the street at night if not accompanied by a parent. Until 2009, curfews could only be justified by a specific risk, limited in time as well as to specific areas of a town or city. But following the entry into force of the country’sInternal Security Law, curfews can be imposed for children under the age of 13 between the hours of 11pm and 6am, if their presence on "public streets during the night would expose them to an obvious risk to their health, security, education, or morality." Local mayors have since justified their respective summer curfews by saying that they help avoid late-night public order disturbances at a time of year when children stay up later, protect children from sights and influences that might cause them psychological and moral harm, and prevent children from joining gangs. Children found outside unaccompanied by a parent are usually taken home or to a police station to be picked up by their parents. But in one town further sanctions will be considered to deter “repeat offenders”, its mayor said.
Curfew offences form part of the array of offences which only affect children. Children come into contact with the justice system not only through general crime and delinquency laws, but also through committing special non-criminal "status offences." These are special because they encompass acts that would not be criminal if they were committed by adults. This means that a status offender's conduct is considered unacceptable not because it is harmful, but solely on the basis of age. Read CRIN’s global report on status offences.
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CHILDREN'S ACCESS TO JUSTICE IN ALGERIA
In this week’s instalment of our access to justice reports, we look at children's access to justice in Algeria:
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) was incorporated into Algerian law upon ratification, though the State maintains interpretative declarations regarding several articles of the CRC. The legal avenues available to challenge children's rights violations are limited - in particular, a child can only bring a case through his or her “tutor”, who is defined in family law as the child's father only, and there is no independent body to receive individual complaints from children. Legal aid is not available outside of criminal settings, and non-governmental organisations are restricted in their ability to bring cases on behalf of children.
Read the full report on access to justice for children in Algeria.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Child rights: 66th Session of the CRC
Organisation: UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
Date: 26 May - 13 June 2014
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Education: Privatisation and its impact on education
Organisation: Global Initiative for Economic, Social and Cultural Rights et al.
Date: 12 June 2014
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Europe: Ensuring the Rights of the Child, and Family-based Services
Organisation: International Foster Care Organisation
Date: 26-29 August 2014
Location: Waterford, Ireland
Nigeria: Building A Child Protection System Fit for the 21st Century in Nigeria
Organisation: AFRUCA - Africans Unite Against Child Abuse
Date: 26 May 2014
Location: Lagos, Nigeria
Human rights: Presentation of the OHCHR Report 2013
Organisation: Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
Date: 26 May 2014
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Poverty: Understanding child and youth poverty - Beyond ‘business as usual’
Organisation: Development Studies Association
Submissions deadline: 2 June 2014
Date: 1 November 2014
Location: London, United Kingdom
Asia: Rethinking urbanisation & equity - the potential of urban living for all children
Organisation: UNICEF & Institute of Development Studies
Date: 9-10 June 2014
Location: Sussex, United Kingdom
Welfare: Investing in Children and Families - Policies and Practices for Promoting Welfare
Organisation: Central Union for Child Welfare
Date: 9-12 June 2014
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Psychology: Children's Rights and Needs - Challenges to School, Family and Society
Organisation: International School Psychology Association (ISPA)
Event date: 15-18 July 2014
Location: Kaunas, Lithuania
Bodily integrity: Whole bodies, whole selves - Activating social change
Organisation: Genital Autonomy et al.
Event date: 24-27 July 2014
Location: Colorado, United States
Participation: Children as Actors for Transforming Society - Young Advocates for Change
Organisation: Initiatives of Change et al.
Date: 26 July - 2 August 2014
Location: Caux, Switzerland
Africa: Keeping Children Safe in Africa - Identifying and addressing the challenges
Organisation: Keeping Children Safe et al.
Date: 3-5 September 2014
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Justice: Access to justice for children - Legal clinics & other instruments for the promotion of children's rights
Date: 11-13 September 2014
Location: Pisa, Italy
Statelessness: Global Forum on Statelessness
Organisation: Tilburg University
Date: 15-17 September 2014
Location: The Hague, Netherlands
Best interests: Developing Child-Centred Practice in Law, Social Work and Policy for Cross-Border Families
Organisation: International Social Service – USA Branch
Date: 2 October 2014
Location: Baltimore, United States
Violence: 7th African Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
Organisation: African Network for the Prevention and Protection against Child Abuse and Neglect
Date: 13-15 October 2014
Location: Nairobi, Kenya
Juvenile justice: ‘Deprivation of Children’s Liberty a Last Resort - Towards Juvenile Justice Guidelines in Asia Pacific and Beyond’
Organisation: IJJO - International Juvenile Justice Observatory
Date: 5-6 November 2014
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Gender: 2nd MenEngage Global Symposium 2014
Organisation: MenEngage
Date: 10-13 November 2014
Location: New Delhi, India
Children’s rights: 6th World congress on childhood and adolescence
Organisation: Various
Date: 12-14 November 2014
Location: La Puebla, Mexico
Children's rights: International conference - 25 Years CRC
Organisation: Leiden University et al.
Date: 17-19 November 2014
Location: Leiden, Netherlands
Discrimination: ‘Children’s right to non-discrimination’
Organisation: CREAN - Children’s Rights Erasmus Academic Network
Date: 4-5 December 2014
Location: Vilnius, Lithuania
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EMPLOYMENT
International Commission of Jurists: Consultant (on models of mandatory human rights impact assessments, with a clear child rights component)
Application deadline: 10 June 2014
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Save the Children Sweden: Associate Director of Program Development and Quality
Application deadline: 15 June 2014
Location: Khartoum, Sudan
European Roma Rights Centre: Executive Director
Application deadline: 8 June 2014
Location: Budapest, Hungary
The Last Word
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