CRINmail 1461
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CHILDREN'S RIGHTS IN 2015
January started with a jolt as an armed attack by extremists targeted the office of French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and a kosher supermarket in Paris. In the wake of the attacks, French police arrested 54 people, including four children, for verbally supporting and inciting terrorist acts. Those arrested were charged with “glorifying” or “defending” terrorism, and the four children and several others were swiftly convicted under special measures for immediate sentencing.
CRIN began the year by shifting responses to child offending from punishment to rehabilitation at an event held during the World Congress on Juvenile Justice in Geneva. The politics of juvenile justice came under scrutiny the same month as police in the Philippines reportedly detained street children ahead of Pope Francis’ visit to Manila in a bid to keep them from view.
Facts too were erased in some places. Japan's Foreign Ministry asked a US publisher to delete references to "comfort women" from school textbooks to cast Japan’s role in history in a kinder light. In response to criticism, publisher HarperCollins agreed to pulp copies of an atlas meant for use in Middle Eastern schools that omitted Israel. And Britain's Oxford University Press was pilloried for asking a children's author to remove pig-related references to avoid offending Jewish and Muslim readers.
The month marked some positive developments, however, for children of LGBT couples. An Italian court for the first time recognised the legal status of a child born to a gay couple, while the Constitutional Court of Austria overturned a ban on adoption by same-sex partners.
February got off to a grim start as Iran reportedly executed a man who was sentenced to death for offences he allegedly committed when he was under the age of 18. Saman Nasim had been convicted in 2013 for allegedly belonging to the Kurdish armed opposition group Party for Free Life of Kurdistan (PJAK), and for carrying out armed activities against Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. Authorities in Egypt covered up the death of at least 27 people, including a 10-year-old boy, after they were killed in demonstrations marking the Egyptian Revolution of 2011 that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak. Official investigations into the deaths allegedly whitewashed evidence, said Amnesty International.
The Australian high court ruled that the detention of 157 Tamil asylum seekers, including 50 children, at sea for a month was lawful at all times. Having fled Sri Lanka out of fear of persecution, the migrants were intercepted at sea and held on an Australian customs vessel in windowless rooms for 22 hours a day with no access to translators and only limited access to legal representation. The Australian Human Rights Commission also released a long-awaited report on the effects of detention on children's mental and physical health.
The same month the World Bank said it would not investigate the possible use of child labour in agricultural projects it is financing in Uzbekistan, despite acknowledging that children might be working against their will on farms that benefit from the bank’s funding. In addition, reports emerged that schools in the country are expelling schoolchildren for failing to collect sufficient scrap metal to meet the quota of a state-imposed recycling plan.
Meanwhile in the United Kingdom, Members of Parliament voted to allow the creation of babies with DNA from three people - the first country to do so. The technique, which uses a modified version of IVF and involves swapping a fraction of the mother's DNA with that of an anonymous donor, aims to stop mitochondrial disease, a serious genetic disease that is passed from mother to child.
In March CRIN published a global report on life imprisonment which found that such sentences are still permitted in 73 countries. In the same month, a report published by the UN Special Rapporteur on torture became the first major UN report to recognise that life imprisonment and lengthy detention sentences violate the prohibition on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment when imposed on children.
Benin and Andorra banned all corporal punishment of children, including in the home, while the European Committee on Social Rights ruled that France was in violation of European human rights standards for failing to explicitly ban all corporal punishment of children in all settings.
In Australia, the parliament of the state of Victoria introduced legislation to lift the time limits for child abuse victims to bring civil claims. Under the new laws, child abuse victims will be able to seek civil damages from those responsible, including organisations, regardless of when the abuse occurred. El Salvador followed suit in December.
Authorities in Sierra Leone and Liberia announced that schools would reopen as Ebola infections slowed down. In Sierra Leone, as many schools were being used as Ebola care centres to treat patients, the government said resources would need to be put into ensuring the safety of pupils and teachers.
The need for investment in children’s rights was the theme of the UN Human Rights Council’s (HRC) annual day on the rights of the child. In CRIN’s submission on the issue we stressed that investment in rights, and the mechanisms to guarantee these, must be anchored in state obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Also during its March session, the HRC passed a resolution to appoint a Special Rapporteur on the right to privacy and an Independent Expert on the enjoyment of human rights of persons with albinism.
In April access to justice for children took a turn for the worse when a senior UN aid worker was suspended for leaking a confidential report exposing the sexual abuse of children by French peacekeeping troops stationed in the Central African Republic. The document collected victims’ testimonies and detailed how soldiers sexually abused children as young as nine years old between December 2013 and June 2014 at a centre for internally displaced people in the capital Bangui. Anders Kompass is said to have passed the report, which was commissioned by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, to French authorities. CRIN, with others, wrote a letter to the UN Secretary-General urging an independent inquiry into the UN’s handling of the case.
In better news, Malta became the world’s first country to ban gender ‘normalising’ surgeries on intersex children before they are able to consent or refuse consent to the procedure. Meanwhile the Obama administration asserted that children in the United States who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT) should not be subjected to so-called ‘conversion therapies’.
Nearly 800 people in Guatemala launched a billion-dollar lawsuit against John Hopkins University in the US over its alleged role in a federally-funded medical experiment programme in which hundreds of vulnerable people, including children, were deliberately infected with sexually transmitted diseases without their informed consent or follow-up treatment.
April was also a month of humanitarian tragedies: 800 people, including some 100 children, drowned in the Mediterranean Sea in what was one of the worst migrant boat disasters in history. Simultaneously Yemen’s ongoing sectarian fighting claimed the lives of at least 405 civilians, including 86 children. In particular, Saudi Arabia, alongside a number of other regional Sunni allies, launched an intensive campaign of airstrikes against the Iran-backed Houthi. Aid agencies continue to warn that supplies are not getting through and hospitals across the country are short of drugs, medical supplies or blood.
In May we marked the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia (IDAHOT) in a special CRINmail by highlighting campaigns and resources from around the world concerning the rights of children who identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning or intersex (LGBTQI). This complemented a Children in Court CRINmail sharing legal cases and legislative developments concerning LGBTQI persons and the impact of these developments on children’s rights.
May brought a string of regressions for children’s sexual and reproductive rights. Human rights experts spoke out against Paraguay's decision to deny an abortion to a 10-year-old girl who became pregnant after being raped by her stepfather. In Paraguay abortions are only authorised when the life of a woman or girl is at serious risk. In Malaysia, a 60-year-old man was acquitted of four counts of rape of a 15-year-old girl, who gave birth to a baby whose DNA matches the offender’s, because the girl’s testimony was deemed unreliable. Women’s right advocates meanwhile urged the government of Sierra Leone to reconsider a law that bans “visibly pregnant” schoolgirls from attending class or even sitting for school equivalency exams.
But justice was achieved (albeit delayed) when prosecutors in Nigeria dropped murder charges against a 15-year-old former child bride accused of killing her husband who was more than twice her age. Wasila Tasi'u, who was 14 when she was forced to marry the 35-year-old man, was accused of lacing food prepared for a post-wedding celebration with rat poison, which resulted in the death of her husband and three other guests. CRIN documented the story behind Wasila’s case as part of our case studies project.
In June a draft UN resolution on the ‘protection of the family’ wasresurrected at the Human Rights Council's June session, despite drawing criticism from human rights groups for its attempt to limit the rights of individuals, including women and children, within the family. As a case in point of violence within the family, a European human rights watchdog ruled that Ireland, Slovenia, Belgium and the Czech Republic were failing to protect children from violence because their laws do not fully ban all corporal punishment of children, including in the home.
On the subject of discrimination, a court in Italy ruled that state-sanctioned “nomadic camps” are a form of segregation and discrimination based on ethnic grounds, marking the first time in Europe that a national court has reached this decision. Meanwhile the Constitutional Court of Kazakhstan struck down an anti-gay law that would have banned ‘propaganda’ of homosexuality to children, with some commentatorspositing that the motivation was the country’s bid for the 2022 Winter Olympic Games. The following month Mozambique decriminalised homosexuality in its new penal code, but Kyrgyzstan approved an anti-gay bill, mimicking and even surpassing the anti-homosexuality legislation enacted by Russia.
And in Belgium, 30 Muslim schoolgirls were denied entry to their school for wearing long skirts, as the headteacher considered them a “symbol of religiosity”. Similarly back in May, a 15-year-old Muslim girl had been suspended from school in northern France for wearing a long black skirt, which her headteacher deemed to be a religious symbol. She was allowed to return in her usual clothes after a show of support on Twitter under the hashtag #JePorteMaJupeCommeJeVeux (I wear my skirt as I please).
Throughout July sexual abuse of children by peacekeepers in Central African Republic (CAR) remained in the headlines, with the UNinvestigating a third case of alleged child sexual abuse involving foreign troops. Also, the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, Flavia Pansieri, resigned, citing health concerns, following the publication of a confidential statement in which she admitted that she “failed to follow up on the CAR situation”.
On its tenth anniversary, the credibility of the Security Council’s process for monitoring and reporting parties which commit grave violations of children’s rights during armed conflict was called into question following many examples of political interference. Breaking point came with the Secretary-General’s decision in April to omit the Israeli Defence Forces and Palestinian armed groups from his annual ‘list of shame’, in spite of a recommendation by his own Special Representative on children and armed conflict. In response, CRIN published a joint analysis with Child Soldiers International reviewing how the monitoring and reporting mechanism needs to change.
Campaigners in Saudi Arabia issued an open letter aiming to halt the pending execution of two young men who were sentenced to death for offences they allegedly committed as children. The coalition of human rights organisations which penned the letter urged the country’s Minister of Justice to prevent the execution of Ali Mohammed al-Nimer and Dawood Hussain al-Marhoon, who received death sentences in May and October 2014. It also claimed they had suffered violence and ill-treatment during their questioning and detention, and were coerced into signing confessions.
The inhuman sentencing of children also made headlines in August, with news of the pending execution of Shafqat Hussain, a young man sentenced to death for crimes allegedly committed at 14. Despite complaints that Hussain was forced to confess under torture he was hanged in the early hours of August 4, amid a global wave of support for his release. His execution had been called off three times in 2015 following a campaign to save his life lead by the organisation Reprieve.
Deadly airstrikes in Yemen continued to pound the civilian population, with reports claiming that more than 1,000 children had been killed during the conflict, with a number of schools also bearing the brunt of Saudi Arabian air strikes. As well as the destruction of their homes and schools, displaced children continue to-date to be at risk of malnutrition and disease, not to mention the repeatedly recorded use of cluster munitions in the conflict, which can continue to kill for generations.
Once again, the CAR sexual abuse scandal resurfaced in August, with the head of the country’s peacekeeping mission being forced out of the job after continued allegations of sexual abuse of children by his forces. Fresh allegations were quickly levelled against troops from the Democratic Republic of Congo, taking the total number of allegations of sexual abuse to 13 separate incidents.
During September CRIN went into overdrive, publishing its Annual Report for 2014-2015, a special edition CRINmail on the Sustainable Development Goals and children’s rights, two reports analysing the work of UN committees in relation to children’s rights and a series of discussions about children’s rights and the world’s ongoing refugee crisis.
The UN passed a landmark resolution making the selection process of the Secretary-General more open and transparent, but also saw the publication of a report detailing the intimidation and reprisals against individuals who cooperate with or testify to the organisation. Documented reprisals included travel bans, harassment, threats, censorship, stigmatisation and torture, with the attacks documented representing only the "tip of the iceberg”.
Digital rights were a hot topic as teenagers in both the US and the UK were arrested for sending naked images of themselves to others their age. In the US a girl and a boy were arrested and charged with making sexually explicit images and named as both victims and offenders in the case, which could see them both registered as sex offenders. In the UK, the name of a boy who texted a naked picture of himself to a girl at school may have been stored on a police intelligence database for sex offences. Police recorded the incident as a crime, even though the boy was not arrested or charged and details of the event may be disclosed to the boy’s future employers.
Technology also made headlines in South Korea after it was revealed that a government-sponsored app allowing parents to monitor their children’s phone activities had major security flaws. In the country it is compulsory for under-19s who buy a smartphone to install the app, which filters and blocks certain content. But two security audits revealed the app could leak children's personal details and browsing activities or allow the phone to be hacked.
In early October a pair of bombings in Turkey killed more than 100 peopleand injured hundreds more, including a number of children. The explosions, blamed on Islamic State militants, hit a rally where thousands of people had assembled. Four people were arrested after massive quantities of explosives and ammunition were found and charged with making "explosive devices with the intention to kill" and "an attempt to disrupt constitutional order". Shortly before the attack, 70 Turkish NGOs signed an open letter to the government, stressing the importance of its obligations contained in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, particularly in situations of conflict.
In the wake of continued attacks worldwide and amidst a growing global feeling of insecurity further restrictions were placed on children’s rights, with parents in the UK gaining the power to cancel the passports of their children up to the age of 17. These measures were announced after it was revealed that 796 people, 312 of whom were under 18, were referred to the UK’s deradicalisation scheme between June and August of 2015. In a similar vein Australia chose to lower the age at which control orders can be applied to terrorism suspects from 16 to 14, with the National Children's Commissioner Megan Mitchell speaking out against the move.
A school in Greece was ordered to pay compensation to children who were banned from going to class after they were wrongly diagnosed with leprosy. Judges at the European Court of Human Rights accepted that the children’s exclusion from school was based on the legitimate aim of preventing any risk of contamination, but ruled that there was an unwarranted delay in getting them back into school. A report by a minority rights NGO found discrimination of a different kind in Turkey, revealing that its education system discriminates against ethnic and religious minorities. The research demonstrated a strong emphasis on religion and nationalism throughout the education system and found that the doctrine of “Turkish-Islamic synthesis” was being revived and imposed on school students, reinforcing a narrow definition of “Turkishness”.
The UN also accused Czech authorities of "systematic" rights violations in their treatment of refugees and migrants, including children detained because of their migration status. The Czech Republic was accused of holding people who arrived in Europe from overseas in "degrading" conditions for up to 90 days and strip searching them for money to pay for their own detention. The Czech Republic was singled out for international shame due to its uniquely routine use of lengthy detention and its xenophobic public discourse on the subject of refugees.
The Chinese government stunned the world by repealing its infamous one-child policy, which had penalties ranging from fines to forced sterilisation. The effective ban on a second child will not be fully removed until March 2016; but it is hoped that human rights abuses linked to enforcement of the policy, including mothers being abducted, forced abortions and infanticide, will be cut down.
In November data from UNICEF UK showed that the number of children seeking asylum in Europe almost doubled when compared with 2014. The agency’s statistics showed that 190,000 children sought asylum in Europe between January and September 2015, compared to 98,000 in the same period in 2014, with one in 10 children around the world, now growing up in a conflict zone. Research from Human Rights Watch also shined a light on 400,000 Syrian children who are out of education despite having left their home for asylum in Turkey.
Shocking terrorist attacks rocked Paris and Beirut midway through the month, with 130 people dead and 368 wounded in France and as many as 43 dead in Lebanon. In the same week in Nigeria at least 41 people were killed in multiple suicide attacks and earlier in the month Russian reports claimed an improvised explosive device downed a plane, killing 224 people, including 17 children. Many States chose to tighten their borders after the string of attacks, further restricting entry for refugees from war-torn countries.
Ireland became the 47th State to ban corporal punishment of children in all settings, including in the home. The Irish Parliament abolished the “reasonable chastisement” defence for corporal punishment following UN criticism and after it was found to be in violation of the European Social Charter for not explicitly banning corporal punishment of children in all settings. In the same month lawmakers in Peru also banned the use of physical and other humiliating punishment against children in all settings, including the home.
A report on the rights of children and their parents from the UN Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief highlighted some important children’s rights issues but left other areas in need of more attention. CRIN responded by highlighting missing or neglected issues in the report to ensure consistent and adequate recognition of children as independent rights holders. These included pressing for an education which increases children’s respect for those who do not share their religion; and protecting children from violations on religious grounds, particularly in relation to apostasy and non-consensual, non-therapeutic male circumcision.
In December inhuman sentencing reached a new high as Saudi Arabia prepared to execute three young men who were sentenced to death as juveniles for attending protest rallies. The government announced it was set to kill more than 50 prisoners in a single day. Two juveniles were alsosentenced to death in Iran, and in Pakistan, a man who was sentenced to death as a 17-year-old, and spent 23 years on death row, was also at risk of imminent execution. Meanwhile the Upper House of the Indian Parliament passed a bill allowing children aged 16 and 17 to be prosecuted as adults for serious criminal offences. The issue of juvenile justice has been in the centre of the Indian media’s attention following the release of a juvenile offender convicted in relation to the rape of a student on a Delhi bus in 2012. The bill requires presidential assent before it can become law.
A UN Security Council resolution set a timetable of six months to create a transitional, united Syrian government and 18 months for a new constitution and democratic elections. Ending on a damning note, John Kerry, US Secretary of State said: “one Syrian in 20 has been killed or wounded; one in five is a refugee; one in two has been displaced; the average life expectancy in Syria has dropped by 20 years”. Adding its opprobrium of the international response, the Ethical Journalism Network reviewed media coverage of migration in the European Union and in 14 countries across the world. Topics included the use of hate speech, sensationalism and falling standards.
Limiting access to information in a different way, the European Union determined that children under the age of 16 years may need parents’ consent to use the internet and social media under a newly approved rule that aims to strengthen children’s data protection and privacy online, but which digital rights advocates say places restrictions on children’s online freedoms.
Back to violence, several UN experts expressed their dismay at the pardoning of a Zambian rapper who raped a child. Clifford Dimba, aka ‘General Kanene’ was also appointed as an ambassador against gender-based violence by President Lungu, but was hit with repeated allegations of assaulting women after leaving prison. The experts called for Dimba’s role to be revoked and for no further pardons to be granted for crimes against women and girls. The requests came after a report from CRIN, prompted by contact with children’s rights activists in Zambia, and resulted in a flurry of global media attention and a dismissive response from the Zambian government.
Finally the long-awaited report of an independent inquiry into the UN’s handling of allegations that French peacekeepers sexually abused children in Central African Republic declared that its response amounted to “gross institutional failure”. Crucially, the report also exonerated Anders Kompass – the whistleblower who first disclosed the abuse. CRIN has produced ashort summary of some of the main findings of the independent panel’s report along with the main recommendations.
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A LOOK AT CHILDREN'S RIGHTS IN 2016
With the New Year already under way, here’s a snapshot of what is to come for children’s rights globally and what you can expect from CRIN in 2016.
Access to justice for children will lead the charge. In January CRIN will launch a global analysis of access to justice for children in every country in the world - along with a global ranking. Then we will support others to take up the findings.
Following the December 2015 publication of the independent inquiry report on allegations of sexual abuse committed by UN peacekeepers, 2016 will reveal if the Secretary-General will act on the report’s findings, or consign them to a drawer while violence continues with impunity.
The election of a UN Secretary-General (SG) will be crucial. Efforts by the 1 for 7 Billion campaign have secured major reforms to the appointment process: for the first time ever this has a clear and public start date, and detailed criteria that candidates must fulfil. Will we see the election of the first female SG?
We are eagerly awaiting to hear about next steps for the Global Study on Deprivation of Liberty, in particular, we hope the Secretary-General will soon appoint an independent expert to lead the study.
February marks Chinese New Year, so… we will launch CRIN’s first Chinese language services!
The theme of this year’s Human Rights Council’s annual day on the rights of the child in March will be “Information and communication technology and child sexual exploitation". CRIN will report live from the event as usual and make sure all rights receive adequate attention.
CRIN will hold its fifth legal advocacy workshop in West Africa; from these experiences we hope to support an incipient network dedicated to legal advocacy globally.
In April the UN General Assembly (GA) Special Session on Drugs, which will take place in New York, will turn its attention to youth. A pressing issue will be the continued funnelling of children who use drugs into the criminal justice system rather than health services. Will this also be the year the GA adopts the Convention on the Rights of the Child as the framework for evaluating drug policy towards young people?
The run-up to the Rio Summer Olympics in August will likely see more violations of children’s rights - reports have already exposed violence and evictions stemming from building projects.
As conflicts and extreme views proliferate globally, governments fuel the problem through policies favouring surveillance and exclusion. CRIN will work with others to find alternatives by building a regional network in the Middle East and North Africa, addressing online surveillance and bringing the rhetoric around the refugee crisis back to human rights.
Public spending on children’s rights, the human rights of migrant children and of adolescents will all be expanded on in general comments by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. And the right to a healthy environment will be the focus of the Committee’s 2016 day of general discussion in September.
In October the UN Study on Violence against Children will be ten years old. To mark the anniversary, the International NGO Council on Violence against Children will produce a report looking at progress on key recommendations. In this connection, we look forward to continuing the countdown towards global prohibition on corporal punishment and we are taking bets: how many States will prohibit in 2016? Will it more or fewer than in 2015?
In global developments more broadly, the world watches the US elections with trepidation; while Obama voiced embarrassment that the US found itself among few States that had not ratified the CRC during his campaign, the country now stands alone.
Action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will get under way in 2016, and CRIN will be monitoring to what extent these will take funding away from human rights work. While the SDGs cede a strong role to the private sector, greater efforts are also needed to curtail the private sector's unchecked influence over the delivery of public services, including its control over the air we breathe and the food we ingest. With this in mind, we will work with partners to explore new ways of challenging children’s rights violations by companies.
And last but not least, international years are becoming ever weirder: the UN has designated 2016 the International Year of Pulses!
Finally, in 2016 CRIN will continue to bring you in-depth analysis of children’s rights globally, opportunities for action, and of course scrutiny of the most egregious NGO jargon; in fact we are considering producing bingo cards for people to play at international conferences! We look forward to working with you in 2016.
The CRIN team
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