CRINmail 1449

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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Discrimination on school grounds

Turkey’s education system discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities and is in need of urgent reform, a new report has found. The research published by the History Foundation and the Minority Rights Group examines the impact of education policies under the current government, which is pushing for a stronger emphasis on religion and nationalism through the education system. Researchers found that the doctrine of “Turkish-Islamic synthesis” was being revived and imposed on school students, reinforcing a narrow definition of “Turkishness”. School textbooks were found to praise Sunni Muslim Turkishness at the expense of other ethnic and religious minorities that share Turkish citizenship. Meanwhile classes on philosophy, science, the arts and sports have been replaced by religious courses, and the education system failed to acknowledge the existence of Kurds, Armenians, Jews, Greeks and other ethnic groups. The report highlighted the need for a more democratic curriculum, constitutional guarantees for education in students’ native languages, and for the State to provide complaints mechanisms for students who face discrimination at school.

A school in Greece has been ordered to pay compensation to children who were banned from going to class after they were wrongly diagnosed with leprosy. As part of the ruling by the European Court of Human Rights, judges accepted that the children’s exclusion from school was based on the legitimate aim of health safety in preventing any risk of contamination. However, the ruling states that there was an unwarranted delay in setting up a panel to decide on the children’s return to school - which resulted in their lack of schooling for more than three months - was a violation of their right to education under the European Convention on Human Rights.

In Canada, the same-sex parents of a child who was denied admission to a private Christian preschool because he has two fathers are taking the case to the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario, alleging that they and their child were discriminated against. Section 18 of the Ontario Human Rights Code prohibits religious and other groups from discriminating in restricting its membership (albeit with some exemptions). The school in this case argues that, as it is a “special interest organisation,” it is exempt from the anti-discrimination provision. But legal experts say the question to be addressed is if a school should be allowed to reject a child because of their parents’ sexuality. According to lawyer Jean-Alexandre De Bousquet, the onus will be on the Christian school to prove that its decision to accept only children of heterosexual couples is “bona fide” or reasonable and genuine, which “would be very difficult to prove”. 

Extrajudicial executions & exploitation

In Brazil, events surrounding the fatal police shooting of a teenager have sparked a credibility crisis, after five officers were filmed planting a gun on the child as he lay dying on the ground. The officers in Rio de Janeiro were filmed placing the gun in the boy’s hand and shooting it twice to make it appear as if he had fired on police, despite eyewitness claims that he had surrendered. The officers initially registered the killing as a case of justifiable self-defence but a video of the incident went viral and they were soon arrested. Rio de Janeiro state security secretary José Mariano Beltrame condemned the killing and promised “exemplary punishment” for the officers. The incident follows a report earlier this year criticising Brazil's military police force for their “shoot first, ask questions later” approach to public security. It found that the majority of the 8,466 people killed in Rio from 2004 to 2015 are teenagers and young adults. In one favela, there was evidence that nine out of ten killings in 2014 were extrajudicial executions.

In the United States, consumers have filed three class action lawsuits against the chocolate manufacturing giants Nestlé, Hershey and Mars over the companies' alleged use of child labour in their production line. According to the complaints, the companies regularly import cocoa beans from plantations in the Ivory Coast, which force children trafficked from neighbouring countries to work in hazardous conditions, under physical violence and without pay. The lawsuits state that the companies do not disclose that their suppliers rely on child labour, in violation of California state law. Legal firm Hagens Berman brought the cases on behalf of private consumers who say they would not have purchased the companies' chocolate products if they had known they were produced through child labour. Nestlé and Hershey also face other lawsuits in the United States over their alleged use of child labour, including one brought by former child slaves that has now reached the US Supreme Court and another by American investors seeking to force disclosure of company records about cocoa supply.

Access to justice & time-barring abuse

In Sri Lanka there are more than 4,000 child abuse cases listed as pending before the courts, and sometimes they take more than eight years to be heard. Activists say that justice is slow for perpetrators and that courts are quick to grant them bail. Already in 2012 UNICEF warned that the delays in the country’s courts can traumatise children whose cases are left idle. The problem has been linked to police taking a long time to complete investigations or sending incomplete files to courts, bottlenecks in the attorney-general's office in clearing cases to proceed to hearings, and an overload of all types of cases before the courts. In 2010 the government launched a US$3 million project to set up 60 new courts to help clear the backlog. But activists are now calling for a special court to investigate sexual abuse and rape cases more efficiently.

The Scottish Faculty of Advocates says it is opposed to government plans to remove the time limit for bringing legal action in all historic child abuse cases since 1964. Currently, victims are required to bringing civil actions for compensation within three years of the alleged abuse taking place or knowledge that it occurred. However, a court can override this deadline “where it is equitable to do so”. The Faculty’s position on time-barring legal action, which responds to a government proposal as part of a public inquiry into historical abuse of children in care, states that the current system in which every case is examined individually permits fairness to both parties. It further argues that time limits are particularly necessary in cases such as those of institutional child abuse where the accused is typically the institutional care provider rather than the alleged material perpetrator of the abuse, and therefore, “obviously under an inherent disadvantage in defending such claims, as they may have no direct knowledge of the alleged abuse, and may also have difficulty in obtaining evidence relating to allegations which frequently date back decades.” 

More generally, concerns surrounding statutes of limitations in child abuse cases point out that they can be unduly restrictive as some begin running before a child has reached adulthood, and that they are insensitive to the reality of the survivors of the abuse who can take an indefinite amount of years to report it. CRIN is monitoring if countries impose limitation periods for bringing challenges to violations of children’s rights in all countries around the world as part of our global Access to Justice project. See part IV.D of each country report for more information on statutes of limitations. 

Clean air and mental health

In India, three infants have petitioned the country’s Supreme Court to ban the use of firecrackers during Dussehra, Diwali and other festivals in an unprecedented case that seeks to protect their constitutional right to clean air. The petition, brought by the advocate fathers of two infants aged six months and one aged 14 months, claims that Delhi is the most polluted city in the world, and that children are worst affected by the air pollution as their lungs have not yet fully developed. The petition also seeks a ban on burning crop residue and open waste disposal, and the implementation of emission standards for vehicles.

There are worrying gaps in mental health services in Gaza, Palestine, with girls facing significant cultural barriers in accessing care. The UN estimates that 373,000 children require specialised psychosocial care, a consequence of living through three wars in the past seven years. Mental health experts say families often avoid seeking help for their daughters for fear of damaging the family reputation and the girl's chances of finding a husband, based on the misconception that mental health illnesses are hereditary. Bassam Abu Hamad, a public health consultant at Al Quds University, attributes this way of thinking to the patriarchal nature of Gaza society where women are judged more harshly with there being "a general stigma and lack of awareness around mental health". However, despite these barriers, mental health experts say there have been recent positive developments with mental health services being integrated into all primary health care centres across the territory, as well as counselling now being provided across Gaza's schools.

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ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN IN UGANDA

Uganda ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and incorporated it into national law through the Children Act 1997. However, the CRC has only been incorporated with ‘appropriate modifications to suit the circumstances in Uganda’. The CRC does not take precedence over national law and is not directly enforceable in national courts. Civil actions can be brought by a child through a ‘next friend’. In cases of infants, the parent or legal guardian would have to initiate the suit. Child rights violations can be challenged in the High Court, if it concerns a violation of a constitutional right. If the violation concerns an Act of Parliament or any other law, or an act done by a person or authority that is inconsistent with a provision in the Constitution, it can be brought to the Constitutional Court. Legal aid is available in Uganda for cases involving life imprisonment or a death sentence; there is no statutory right to legal aid for civil and family law cases. There are several non-governmental organisations in Uganda that provide legal assistance.

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

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

Asia: Regional consultation on the elimination of violence against children and improved public investment in children
Organisation: Child Rights Coalition Asia
Date: 15-16 October 2015
Location: Quezon City, Philippines

Street children: Research conference - ‘Exploring different conceptualisations of street-connected children’s identities’
Organisation: Consortium for Street Children
Event date: 5 November 2015
Submissions deadline: Poster displays for research studies until 5 October
Location: London, United Kingdom

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: Middle East and North Africa Intern
Application deadline: Rolling deadline
Location: Bethlehem, Palestine

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

European Roma Rights Centre: Fundraising Officer
Application deadline: 5 November 2015
Location: Budapest, Hungary

LEAK OF THE WEEK

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