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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Iran executes two more juveniles
Iran has executed a young woman who was convicted of murdering her husband when she was 17 years old, according to the organisation Iran Human Rights (IHR). Fatemeh Salbehi married Hamed Sadeghi (30) at the age of 16, and while first ‘confessing’ to his murder, she later retracted her statement. At the time of her interrogations, she had no access to a lawyer, advocates affirm. Fatemeh was hanged this week in the Adel-Abad Prison of Shiraz, in the south of the country.
Eight days earlier, another young man, Samad Zahabi, was hanged in the Dizel Abad Prison in Kermanshah for shooting a fellow shepherd during a row over who should graze their sheep. He was 17 years old at the time, and claimed the shooting was unintentional and in self-defence. Zahabi's execution was carried out without the 48 hour notice period being given to his lawyer, as is required by law. Zahabi's family only learned of his death when his mother went to visit him in prison.
A recent IHR report shows that the number of the executions so far in 2015 in Iran is the highest in more than 25 years. More than 160 juvenile offenders are currently on death row in prisons across the country, according to Amnesty International.
Sexual abuse and accountability
In Guatemala, most pregnancies among girls under the age of 14 are the result of rape at the hands of fathers or other relatives, children’s rights advocates have said. "In the majority of cases of sexual violence against girls, some as young as 10, most are committed by family members, mainly by the girl's father or stepfather," said Mirna Montenegro, the head of Guatemala's Sexual and Reproductive Health Observatory. Access to justice is a challenge, as out of the 2,000 reported cases of pregnancies in under-14s in 2012, only eight resulted in convictions, said Montenegro. Furthermore it is often the girl who is then ostracised by the family and forced to leave the family home, rather than the perpetrator. High levels of sexual violence against women and girls are a consequence of the low status of women, especially indigenous Mayan women, in Guatemala's patriarchal and macho society, said Montenegro, as well as being a legacy of the country’s 1960-1996 civil conflict when rape was used as a weapon of war.
Colombia's Supreme Court has ordered a Roman Catholic diocese to pay more than $200,000 to the families of two children molested by a priest, in what is the first time the church has been made financially liable for abuse committed by one of its priests in the country. The priest, Luis Enrique Duque, is serving time for abusing two boys in 2007 in a town northwest of Bogota. The church had appealed a lower court’s ruling, arguing that the abuse was a violation of Duque's pastoral mission. However the Supreme Court upheld the decision stating that the church is liable because the priest took advantage of his religious role to commit his crimes. While this judgement is a first for Colombia, the Catholic Church in other parts of the world has been forced to pay billions of dollars in court judgments, settlements, compensation claims and legal fees over the years. For example, in the United States, dioceses have paid more than $3 billion on settlements with victims since 1950.
Textbook and Internet controversies
Kazakhstan has recalled a series of school textbooks which acknowledged Crimea as part of Russia after it caused a diplomatic row with Ukraine. The secondary school textbooks said Crimea had become part of Russia in 2014 after a popular referendum, failing to mention that few countries recognised Russia's annexation of Crimea. Kazakhstan has in the past said that it recognises both the results of the Crimea referendum and Ukraine's territorial integrity. But in ordering a revision of the textbooks, Kazakhstan's education ministry said that the information on the peninsula did not "fully represent the position of Kazakhstan and the international community on the issue of Crimea." The publisher behind the controversy, Mektep, which creates history and geography textbooks used in schools in Kazakhstan, said the textbooks would be adjusted accordingly.
The Pacific island chain of Tonga intends to create a commission to block websites “deemed not good for the community” under new legislation passed last week. Communications minister Siaosi Sovaleni says the Communications Commission Bill 2015 aims to protect children from misusing the internet. He said the legislation responds to “concerns about the negative impact” of using the internet, citing child sexual exploitation as a problem. While mandatory filtering will be enforced, people will be able to apply for the mechanism to be disconnected, said Mr Sovaleni, assuring that people’s freedoms will not be infringed upon in the process. But free speech advocates have warned that the scope of the law, which will create a ‘blacklist’ of websites, could potentially expand to block personal blogs, social media, and sites that contain political content or may be used by whistle-blowers. There are also concerns over the lack of transparency in drawing up criteria for defining content as inappropriate.
Mental health and consent
More than a third of children receiving mental health care in the United States are treated by their primary care physician alone, rather than by specialist doctors or social workers, a study in the journal Pediatrics has revealed. The research also suggests that 40 percent of children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are treated only by their primary care physician, who is more likely than psychiatrists to prescribe medication in these cases. Meanwhile, statistics in the United Kingdom have shown that almost 40,000 children in England received no help after referral from their local doctor. The data, collected between April 2014 and March 2015, shows that there were a total of 186,453 cases referred by general practitioners and other professionals of which 39,652 children did not receive help. The UK’s National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has called the picture ‘worrying’ and stressed that the situation is likely to be worse because, in the case of children who have been abused, not all of them will have a diagnosable mental health problem.
The United Kingdom’s publically funded health system should be allowed to perform life-saving surgery on a child with an aggressive form of bone cancer, despite the objection of the child’s parents who favour traditional remedies, the Family Division of the UK’s High Court has ruled. The child, known only as ‘J’, has a four inch-long tumour on his right jawbone which is likely to spread if not surgically removed. The operation has a 55-65 percent chance of survival for five years and there is a 35-45 percent risk of the cancer re-emerging within that period. In its decision, the court said that it was in J’s best interest to receive surgery rather than the traditional Chinese medicine his parents favoured, to save him from what his doctor described as “a brutal and agonising death”. J’s parents have taken him to Poland, where they are habitually residents, for a second opinion.
New resources on corporal punishment
The Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children has published the following resources:
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ACCESS TO JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN IN IRAN
The Islamic Republic of Iran ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and incorporated it into its domestic law in 1994. The CRC is binding as law, but if its provisions contradict either domestic law or Islamic standards, the latter two would prevail. Provisions of the CRC are directly enforceable in court, and will only be upheld if they are compatible with Shari’a law. Children under the age of 15 require legal representatives in order to bring legal proceedings, with the exception of cases where they can prove their maturity to the court. Juvenile courts are available, and follow the same procedures for appealing to higher courts, as any other case would. Legal aid is available for applicants in criminal cases who can prove that they cannot afford a lawyer, but children are not given any priority. Any person who cannot afford the court costs can request the court to waive them. Children’s rights organisations may act as plaintiffs on behalf of children if they can obtain authorisation from the Ministry of Justice. As of 2015, non-governmental organisations that are authorised by the Iranian judiciary can intervene on behalf of children in cases.
Read the full report on access to justice for children in Iran.
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
Americas: 156th session of the IACHR
Organisation: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Date: 17-28 October 2015
Location: Washinton DC, United States
Europe: Young people & sexual health -Towards improved standards for sexual education in Europe
Organisation: Public Policy Exchange
Date: 21 October 2015
Location: Brussels, Belgium
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
Save the Children Sweden: Deputy Response Team Leader for the Humanitarian Surge Team
Location: West African country (TBC)
Application deadline: 25 October 2015
Save the Children Sweden: Director Program Development and Ouality
Location: Khartoum, Sudan
Application deadline: 25 October 2015
European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC): Fundraising Officer
Application deadline: 5 November 2015
Location: Budapest, Hungary
ERRC: Information Officer
Application deadline: 16 November 2015
Location: Budapest, Hungary
LEAK OF THE WEEK
Youth curfews are taking an entirely different toll on teenagers in the West Java city of Purwakarta in Indonesia, where those found to have repeatedly violated the city's 9pm dating curfew may find themselves married off because of it.
The person behind this idea is Mr Dedi Mulyadi, head of Purwakarta district, who thinks a dating curfew will "protect their [teenagers'] morality". The new regulation, which entered into force on 1 October, only applies to teens under the age of 17, and aims to prevent unwanted pregnancy and protect the honour of families. Local patrols and new CCTV cameras will help ensure the regulation is enforced, Mr Mulyadi said, warning that "If they break the rules three times, the village council may ask for the parents to marry them." How this will be enforced exactly is unclear, as the legal age for marriage in Indonesia is 16 years old; but underage marriage ceremonies still occur in rural parts of the country.
Though one thing's for sure, Mr Mulyadi is not just concerned about honour and morality; he’s also nostalgic for a bygone era when people went to bed with the sun and woke up with the chickens: "Back in the day,” he began, "you could not visit a neighbor after 9pm because villagers would be in bed, preparing to wake up at dawn to till their [rice] paddy fields." Teenagers should therefore get married. Naturally.
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