10 January 2006 CRINMAIL 744
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- DISABILITY CONVENTION: Seventh session of the Ad Hoc Committee [event]
- EASTERN EUROPE: Child protection training material [online resource]
- SOUTHERN EUROPE: Need for New Child Inclusion Policies [event]
- ROMANIA: Prostitution among Romanian minors in Rome [publication]
- EDUCATION IN EMERGENCIES: Training of Trainers for Europe [event]
- WALES: Implementing children's rights in Wales [publication and event]
- EMPLOYMENT: ECPAT - University of Colorado [job postings]
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Your submissions are welcome if you are working in the area of child rights. To contribute, email us at [email protected]. Adobe Acrobat is required for viewing some of the documents, and if required can be downloaded from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep.html
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DISABILITY CONVENTION: Seventh session of the Ad Hoc Committee [event]
Date: 16 January - 3 February 2006
Location: New York, USA
The Seventh session of the Ad Hoc Committee on a Comprehensive and Integral International Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights and Dignity of Persons with Disabilities will open next week in New York. The aim of the 7th Ad Hoc Committee meeting is to conclude a draft text of the Convention and submit it to the General Assembly for its adoption, hopefully at its 61st session.
Indeed, on 10 November 2005, the General Assembly adopted Resolution A/C.3/60/L.28 on the Ad Hoc Committee, stating that the Committee shall hold two sessions in 2006, prior to the 61st session of the General Assembly: one of fifteen working days from 16 January to 3 February, in order to achieve a complete reading of the draft text of a Convention prepared by the Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, and one of ten working days from 7-18 August 2006.
The Ad Hoc Committee was established in December 2001 with the aim of considering proposals for a Convention to protect and promote the rights and dignity of persons with disabilities. The resolution also, "invites States, relevant bodies and organisations of the United Nations system, including relevant human rights treaty bodies, the regional commissions, the Special Rapporteur on disability of the Commission for Social Development, as well as intergovernmental and non-governmental organisations with an interest in the matter to make contributions to the work entrusted to the Ad Hoc Committee."
The Ad Hoc Committee of the General Assembly held its first session in July 2002. It mainly focused on procedural issues. At the second session, in June 2003, the Committee recommended to the General Assembly that a Convention be elaborated, and established a Working Group to prepare a draft text which would be the basis for negotiation in the next sessions. The Committee started its negotiation on a draft Convention at its Third Session in May 2004.
During the Sixth Session in August 2005, Don MacKay, Chairman of the Ad Hoc Committee, said he hoped the final text would be ready in a year. 2008 had been mentioned as the year when the Convention might go into effect, but that would depend on how many ratifications were obtained.
Furthermore, he explained that everyone agreed that women and children with disabilities should be given emphasis in the Convention, but there was still a question of how to deal with gender issues structurally. There were also concerns about elderly and rural people with disabilities. While some delegations were reluctant to compartmentalise and identify particular groups, there was no question that women and children would be separately identified. Whether it would be in a specific article remained a question, however.
Among the most contentious issues, he identified institutionalisation, integrated education and issues relating to family. For instance, there was increasing acceptance that there should be no forced institutionalisation, but how to address that question in the Convention remained a difficult issue. Some States believed that in some cases, they should have the right to institutionalise people, or establish guardians for persons with some types of disabilities.
For more information on the Seventh session of the Ad Hoc Committee, and to access related documents, visit the UN website on the Disability Convention
Background information on the Ad Hoc Committee
Reports of previous sessions
CRINMAIL 711: Special Edition on the Drafting of a Disability Convention
For regular news updates on disability issues and the drafting of the Convention, visit CRIN's news page
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EASTERN EUROPE: Child protection training material [online resource]
[22 December 2005] - UNICEF Regional Office for CEE/CIS (Central and Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States) and the Baltics launched an important new online Resource package on child protection in CEE/CIS last month, the first online resource package on Child Protection issues from a specific region.
The package includes reports, statistics, videos, photos, plus region- and country-specific information. It is an attempt to consolidate knowledge on the situation of child protection in the CEE/CIS region and the progress of reforms that UNICEF is concerned with, namely the child care system, juvenile justice system and the overall system of child protection.
For more information, contact:
Anna Nordenmark Severinsson, Project Officer - Child Protection
UNICEF Regional Office for CEE/CIS and the Baltics
Palais des Nations, CH 1211 Geneva, 10, Switzerland
Tel: + 4122 909 5427; Fax: + 4122 909 5909
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.unicef.org/ceecis
Access the resource package
Browse UNICEF's Child Protection webpage for teachers
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SOUTHERN EUROPE: Need for New Child Inclusion Policies [event]
Date: 16-17 February 2006
Location: Rome, Italy
The European Foundation for Street Children World-wide (EFSCW) and the Representation of the European Commission in Italy have organised a forum on "Child Inclusion as a Challenge to the Mediterranean Partnership of the EU - the consequences of migration on children at risk in the Southern European Member States".
The Southern European countries within the exterior borders of the EU need specific attention towards child inclusive policies, which also have to take into consideration their specific migration problems. For this reason, the forum aims at raising awareness of this crucial problem as well as presenting and ensuring a mutual exchange between different stakeholders.
The conference will be a forum for critical discourse on all aspects of the consequences of migration for children at risk in these countries and on current issues relating to this phenomenon, which is of growing importance to the social and political integration of the EU. Furthermore, it aims at the improvement of communication between the different national and European levels of policy making, governance and social intervention as well as early prevention methods. Finally, it will contribute to the creation of permanent networking links between these different levels in order to ensure a better co-ordinated and sustainable joint action, such as, in the field of unaccompanied migrant children, the fight against child trafficking and exploitation as well as the reintegration of ethnic minorities.
Children at risk, and in particular migrant children, are one of the most vulnerable groups in Europe. Therefore, new co-ordinated active policies and specific solutions, which take into consideration these target groups and ensure a better protection of the child, have to be discussed, and the best practice be supported and promoted within the European Union.
For more information, contact:
Elisabetta Fonck, Advocacy Lobbying and Fundraising Officer
European Foundation for Street Children World-wide (EFSCW)
Square Vergote 34, B - 1030 Brussels, Belgium
Tel: + 32 2 347 78 48; Fax: + 32 2 347 79 46
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.enscw.org
More information here.
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ROMANIA: Prostitution among Romanian minors in Rome [publication]
[December 2005] - The Terre des Hommes Foundation recently published the results of a three-month research project on unaccompanied Romanian children in Rome: "An Increase in prostitution among Romanian minors in Rome".
Rome today appears to contain the highest concentration of Romanian unaccompanied children in Italy. Although the number of those trafficked from Romania to Italy is a reality, the number of children from 14 to 18 years old who migrate from their country and become involved in, or fall victim to, exploitation once they are already in Italy seems increasingly high. Boys and girls are involved mainly in the sex trade, while younger children (from 11 to 13) are involved in petty crimes such as robbery and extortion.
Unfortunately it is impossible to evaluate the size of the sex trade, although street workers agree that turnover is high and that children move from one place to another every day as clients look for new faces. The main areas where these minors come from in Romania are Bucharest, Calarasi, Craiova, Galati and Iasi. In both countries Italy and Romania, intervention activities lack basic co-ordination, while the blatant exploitation of human beings is still continuing with the movement of young Romanian migrants increasing every day.
Unilateral programmes have been designed, discussed and approved. However, in practice, the search for reliable partners in the other country and the establishment of sustainable and concrete collaboration agreements often begin only on the first day of implementation. Romanian and Italian solutions need to be combined, focus on the principle of the best interests of the child, and be based on trust between partners. The solution must be a European one.
Terre des Hommes welcome all comments and suggestions for improvement, as well as documents and research from the field.
For more information, contact:
Reinhard Fichtl, Delegate
Terre des Hommes Nepal
Jawalakhel, PO Box 2430, Kathmandu, Nepal
Tel: + 977 1 5555348; Fax: + 977 1 5532558
Website: http://www.tdhnepal.org
Website: http://www.childtrafficking.com
Read the report
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EDUCATION IN EMERGENCIES: Training of Trainers for Europe [event]
Date: 15-17 March 2006
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
The InterAgency Network for Education in Emergencies (INEE) is calling for trainers to submit applications for the Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies Training of Trainers Workshop for Europe. This Training of Trainers workshop is being co-hosted by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), Save the Children Denmark, the Refugee Education Trust (RET), UNHCR and UNICEF.
The workshop will involve experienced trainers from over 40 countries in the region. It will be the fourth in a series of several regional workshops (Anglophone Africa, Francophone Africa, South Asia, Southeast and East Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, North America, and Europe) that will be carried out in 2006. It will train approximately 25 education and humanitarian trainers in each region over three days to apply the INEE Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early Reconstruction.
The goal of this process is to create a cadre of trainers based in regional capitals who will use training and other organisational and individual learning strategies to institutionalise the Minimum Standards within their agencies. As such, trainers are required to conduct a minimum of 2 local, national or regional trainings on the Minimum Standards in the 12 months after the INEE workshop.
The workshops will directly strengthen the capacity of global, regional, national and local level humanitarian response, education and protection workers and networks, equipping them to provide the psychosocial and physical protection that quality education in emergencies can afford to communities in crisis and the co-ordinated, holistic response needed to lay a solid and sound basis for post-conflict and disaster reconstruction.
Application deadline: 27 January 2006
For more information on the workshop and the application criteria, contact:
Allison Anderson, Focal Point on Minimum Standards
Inter-Agency Network on Education in Emergencies (INEE)
International Rescue Committee
122 East 42nd Street, 12th floor, NY, NY 10168, USA
Tel: + 1 212 551 3107
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.ineesite.org
More information here
Read INEE's Minimum Standards for Education in Emergencies, Chronic Crises and Early Reconstruction
Read INEE's recent paper on Implementing minimum standards for education in emergencies: lessons from Aceh
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WALES: Implementing children's rights in Wales [publication and event]
Date: 25 January 2006
Location: Swansea, Wales, UK
Save the Children UK and the Wales United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) Monitoring Group are holding a conference to examine progress in the realisation of children's rights and the implementation of the UNCRC in Wales. The Minister for Children of the Welsh Assembly Government, the Chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the Children's Commissioner for Wales and two children's rights academics are the key speakers at the conference.
The report "Righting the wrongs: The reality of children's rights in Wales" will be launched at the conference. This report uses the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child's reporting framework to provide an analysis of how far children's rights have been realised in Wales since the Committee on the Rights of the Child highlighted its areas of concern in its last report on the UK in 2002.
The process of preparing this report has presented the unique opportunity of including the expertise of a diverse section of the non-governmental and academic community working with and for children and young people. Using the lens of children's rights the different contributors provide detailed analyses on: Participation, Corporal Punishment, Child Protection, Child Poverty, Child Health, Education and Citizenship, Asylum Seeker Children, Disabled Children, Looked After Children, Sexual Exploitation and Juvenile Justice as well as measures taken to implement the Convention in Wales.
Each contributor identifies gaps and weaknesses (as well as strengths) in the available information and makes recommendations for action. These findings will be presented during workshop sessions and will give the opportunity to policy makers, practitioners and academics to comment and input their views. In this context, Wales will be in a stronger position to assess the position of its children's rights as it approaches 2007 - the time for the UK's next periodic report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the beginning of the next reporting phase.
For more information, contact:
Tracy Wiggham/ Rhian Croke
Save the Children UK - Wales Programme
8 Cathedral Road, Cardiff CF11 9LJ, UK
Tel: + 44 (0)29 2039 6838; Fax: + 44 (0)2920 2022 7797
Email: [email protected]
Email: [email protected]
More information here
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EMPLOYMENT: ECPAT - University of Colorado [job postings]
ECPAT: Communications Officer - Campaigns Officer
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
Duration: Two years, renewable
The Communications Officer will raise awareness and understanding about all forms of commercial sexual exploitation of children by sharing information and promoting the work of ECPAT International through liaisons with media, other agencies and the ECPAT Board, Secretariat and Network.
The Campaigns Officer's role will be to strategise, plan and co-ordinate ECPAT International campaigns related to commercial sexual exploitation of children, and to provide technical support in advocacy, lobbying and campaigning to the ECPAT Secretariat and the network.
Application deadlines: 27 January 2006
Starting date: February 2006
For more information, contact:
ECPAT International
328 Phaya Thai Road, Bangkok 10400, Thailand
Fax: + 662 215 8272
Email: [email protected]
UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO: Research post on children, youth and environments
The Ph.D. Programme in Design and Planning in the College of Architecture and Planning at the University of Colorado will provide full funding, including tuition, to a qualified applicant seeking to undertake research on some aspect of children, youth and environments. The College hosts the journal "Children, Youth and Environments" and houses the Children, Youth and Environments Centre for Design and Research, in whose activities the applicant will be expected to be involved.
For more information, contact:
Willem van Vliet, Director, PhD Programme
College of Architecture and Planning
University of Colorado, Boulder, CO 80309-0314, USA
Tel: + 1 303 492 5015; Fax: + 1 303 492 6163
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye
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