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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Juvenile to be crucified for attending protest

In Saudi Arabia, the final appeal of a young man sentenced to death as a child has been dismissed, leading to fears his execution could take place in a matter of days. Ali Mohammed Al-Nimr was arrested when he was 17 years old on questionable charges of illegally protesting and gun possession. Advocates say the charges were politically motivated, as his uncle is a well known critic of the Saudi regime, and was himself sentenced to death for terrorism offences and "waging war on God." According to the legal charity Reprieve, Ali confessed his guilt while being tortured and was refused access to a lawyer. His final appeal, which upheld his execution by crucifixion and beheading, was closed to the public and occurred without his knowledge. Despite the irregularities, Zena Esia, from the European Saudi Organisation for Human Rights said: "The only way to get Ali out of this would be a royal pardon." 

Several UN human rights experts have called on Saudi Arabia to immediately stop executing children in relation to Ali’s case and that of two other individuals who were also children at the time they were arrested for their participation in protests. At the same time, the UN has been heavily criticised for handing Saudi Arabia a key human rights role in the Human Rights Council (HRC), despite the country's dire human rights record. As head of the Consultative Group of the HRC, the Saudi representative is chairing the committee that shortlists special rapporteurs. The position has been seen as a consolation prize for Saudi Arabia after the State withdrew its recent bid to head the HRC due to strong opposition. 

Retaliation for challenging abuses

United States soldiers and marines in Afghanistan are instructed not to intervene in cases of sexual abuse against young boys at the hands of Afghan police and soldiers, even if a child is brought into US military bases to be abused. Under the US policy of nonintervention a number of soldiers have been disciplined and faced career ruin for challenging the abuse. According to the New York Times, the policy is intended to maintain positive relations with Afghan police and militia and highlights a reluctance to impose cultural values in a country where child abuse is common, especially among high-ranking men. The ancient practice of bacha bazi, as it is called in Farsi - literally meaning boy play - involves using young boys for entertainment and sexual activities. A spokesperson for US command in Afghanistan said: “Generally, allegations of child sexual abuse by Afghan military personnel would be a matter of domestic Afghan criminal law,” adding that “there would be no express requirement that US military personnel in Afghanistan report it.”

A new report by the UN Secretary-General has shown that intimidation and reprisals against individuals who seek to cooperate with or testify to the UN are becoming more “severe and varied”, including against children's rights defenders. The range of reprisals documented have included travel bans, harassment, threats, censorship, stigmatisation and torture, with the attacks documented representing only the "tip of the iceberg”. Children's rights defenders have been included in the report, with one activist from the Society for Defending Street and Working Children in Iran being detained for two months in solitary confinement for cooperating with a special rapporteur. The families of activists were also reported to have suffered reprisals in Burundi, Venezuela and Viet Nam. This report reveals that for many, interacting with the UN is something that cannot be done safely and without fear. 

Concerns over pain relief and vaccinations

In Ukraine, two children have been paralysed in Europe’s first polio outbreak for five years, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. The infections were confirmed as vaccine-derived, which is feeding local mistrust towards immunisations; but such strains of the disease are rare and can emerge in some populations if immunisation levels are too low, said the WHO. Health experts say Ukraine, which has the lowest vaccination rates in Europe, had been at particular risk of  a reemergence of polio. In 2014, only 50 percent of children were fully immunised against the disease and other vaccine-preventable diseases. The latest recorded cases of polio “were merely the visible cases among many silent carriers,” said Oliver Rosenbaum, a spokesperson for the Polio Eradication Initiative at the WHO, who explained that one of the dangers of the disease is that many other children may have also been infected without developing symptoms. The WHO is pressing the Ukrainian government to implement an emergency outbreak response to curb the spread of the disease.

Children with appendicitis in the United States are likely to receive differentiated treatment for pain management depending on their race, a study in the journal JAMA Pediatrics has suggested. The researchers, who chose to look at appendicitis because it is a condition with accepted guidelines regarding the treatment of pain with opioids, noted that after adjusting the data for pain score, insurance status, age, and sex, black children were found less likely to be given prescription pain relief than white children. The study found that some 34 percent of white children with appendicitis were treated with opioid analgesia compared to 12 percent of black children. And after categorising the data by pain score and ethnicity, the researchers discovered that only a quarter of black children in severe pain were given opioids compared to nearly 60 percent of white children, who are also 75 percent more likely to receive opioids for moderate pain than black children. One of the researchers, Monika Goyal, said, “Although there's literature that has documented racial disparities in pain management for adults, we were surprised that these differences also exist in children”.

Education and privacy

A phone app funded by the South Korean government allowing parents to monitor their children’s phone activities has major security flaws, a report by the University of Toronto reveals. It is mandatory in South Korea for under-19s who buy a smartphone to install the app called Smart Sheriff, which filters and blocks harmful content. It also allows parents to control the apps on their child's phone and even schedule when the phone can be used. But the recent report, which is based on two separate security audits, says the app has vulnerabilities that could leak children's personal details and browsing activities or allow the phone to be hacked. South Korea mandated in April that all children's phones must be monitored, which sparked controversy over concerns for children’s privacy.

Kenya’s government has shut all state-run schools in response to an ongoing teachers’ strike over a pay rise. There has been no teaching in public schools since the beginning of the month after teachers walked out over the government’s failure to abide by a Supreme Court order for a salary increase of at least 50 percent. President Uhuru Kenyatta said that teachers are already well paid and a pay rise would damage government finances. Last week, the government announced that the move to close the schools was about protecting "children, staff, and... property" and to "allay the worries of parents", as there had been concerns that children were attending school without supervision. Private schools were also ordered to shut, but the High Court voided the order. Kenya's annual school year began on 31 August, with national exams due to begin in October, but many schools never opened due to the strike. Hugholin Kimaro, who has been a teacher for more than 20 years, admitted that the strike is "very painful", but that it is for a worthy cause. 

Literary community ‘alarmed’ over book ban

New Zealand’s Board of Film and Literature Review has banned the sale of a young adult novel, which recounts a Maori boy's experience at school dealing with racism and bullying, after a Christian charity complained over “detailed descriptions of sex acts, coarse language and scenes of drug-taking”. The book, Into the River, will be kept off the shelf until at least October when the review panel next meets. But the decision has prompted criticism from the literary community. The New Zealand Book Council said if an age restriction is placed on the “challenging and ambitious novel that explores the reality of what many young people are struggling with,” it will “set a dangerous precedent”. The Publishers Association of New Zealand called the ban “an unprecedented and extreme action,” hailing the book for “influencing and changing the lives of many of its teenage male readers”. One teacher also defended the book: “people involved with teaching boys, especially English teachers, know how important books like this are because they speak to boys about the things that other boys’ books don’t have the firepower or the vitality to do effectively”.

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ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN IN TONGA

Tonga ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in 1995. The CRC has been implemented in national law in a limited way, and it does not take precedence over national law. The CRC cannot be directly enforced in domestic courts, though the Supreme Court has made reference to it in previous judgments. A child can only personally bring claims to the criminal court if they are the victim, otherwise a minor may only sue or defend a claim through his or her next friend. The constitutionality of laws or administrative decisions can be challenged through judicial review. There is no state-funded legal aid system or separate juvenile court or system for children in conflict with the law. There is also no formal human rights infrastructure in the sense of a national human rights institution. However, there is a Public Complaints Commissioner who receives and investigates public complaints about government departments. 

Read the full report on access to justice for children in Tonga.

This report is part of CRIN's access to justice for children project, looking at the status of the CRC in national law, the status of children involved in legal proceedings, the legal means to challenge violations of children’s rights and the practical considerations involved in challenging.

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Call for submissions: Global Summit on Childhood - 'Creating a Better World for Children & Youth Through Sustainability, Social Innovation & Synergy'
Organisation: Association for Childhood Education International
Submission deadline: 28 September 2015
Event date: 31 March - 3 April 2016
Location: San José, Costa Rica

Juvenile justice: Online training course on ‘Alternatives to Detention for Young Offenders’ 
Organisation: International School for Juvenile Justice 
Course dates: 1 October 2015 (lasts three months) 
Location: Online 

Child abuse: European Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
Organisation: International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
Dates: 27-30 September 2015
Location: Bucharest, Romania

Call for submissions: Multi-Agency collaboration in child protection in South-eastern Europe
Organisers: Terre des hommes Kosovo, Child Protection Hub, DCI-Netherlands
Submission deadline: N/A
Event date: 9-10 November 2015
Location: Prishtina, Kosovo

Reproductive rights: New reproductive technologies and the European fertility market
Organisation: Erasmus University Rotterdam et al. 
Abstract submissions deadline: 1 October 2015
Event date: 19-20 November 2015
Location: Santander, Spain

Health: Conference on child rights and sight
Organisation:  Distressed Children & Infants International
Dates: 24 October 2015
Location: New Haven, United States

Asia Pacific: 10th Asian Pacific Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect
Organisation: International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
Dates: 25-28 October 2015
Location: Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

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EMPLOYMENT

CRIN: Legal research internship
Application deadline: 30 September 2015
Location: London, United Kingdom

CRIN: Legal Translation Intern
Application deadline: Rolling deadline
Location: Flexible, home-based 

CRIN: Communications Intern (French-speaking)
Application deadline: Rolling deadline
Location: Flexible, home-based 

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THE LAST WORD

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