2 March 2006 CRINMAIL 759
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- UNICEF: Survey on UNICEF Partnerships with NGOs [call for participation]
- COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS: Status of Negotiations and Submissions [news]
- PALESTINE: Over 200 Palestinian Children Arrested in Two Months [news]
- LIBYA: Women, and Girls Locked Up Indefinitely Without Charge [publication]
- DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: The Invention of Child Witches [publication]
- NETHERLANDS: International Conference on Early Childhood Education [event]
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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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UNICEF: Survey on UNICEF Partnerships with NGOs [call for participation]
UNICEF's Office of Public Partnerships and Evaluation Office recently launched a review of the organisation's partnerships with civil society organisations (CSOs). The Review will provide an analysis of UNICEF practice in partnership and invite partner proposals for UNICEF improved effectiveness as a partner.
The objectives of the study are:
[call for participation] UNICEF's Office of Public Partnerships and Evaluation Office recently launched a review of the organisation's partnerships with civil society organisations (CSOs). The Review will provide an analysis of UNICEF practice in partnership and invite partner proposals for UNICEF improved effectiveness as a partner.The objectives of the study are:
- to generate a practice-based definition of the term 'partnerships’;
- to help UNICEF to understand of the nature of its collaboration with civil society organisations from the perspective of CSO partners themselves;
- to identify key conditions and factors that influence the strengths, weaknesses and, in particular, the outcomes of UNICEF-CSOs partnerships and;
- to provide guidance to UNICEF on the implications of its CSO partners' experience for improved organisational policy and practice for maximum results from these relationships.
This survey is a key element of the review and will help to highlight CSOs views on the principles of partnerships and to assess UNICEF-CSO partnerships. The survey is available in English, French and Spanish. It is intended both for organisations that have worked in partnership with UNICEF as well as those that have not.
Organisation that do not have access to the Internet can email: [email protected] for a Word version of the survey.
Closing date: 18 March 2006
English version of the survey
Version Française de l'enquête
Versión del cuestionari o en español
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COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS: Status of Negotiations and Submissions [news]
Agreement on the draft Resolution on the creation of the new Human Rights Council has not yet been reached. Jan Eliasson, president of the UN General Assembly, told reporters yesterday that he was still consulting with Member States, and hoped it would be adopted before the beginning of the next (and last) session of the Commission on Human Rights, planned for 13 March.
Eliasson, Secretary-General Kofi Annan, and the High-Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour, all called for Member States to approve the draft Resolution as soon as possible. However, the US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, declared this week that the US opposed the proposed Resolution. He said he was under instructions from Washington to reopen negotiations or postpone deliberations on the new body for several months.
NGO reactions have been diverse. UN Watch, a Geneva-based human rights group that has closely monitored the negotiations, is calling for three major amendments to the draft text. Human Rights Watch, although not completely satisfied with the draft, is lobbying US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for the adoption of the proposal. Similarly, Amnesty International declared the text to be weaker than hoped, but is calling for States not to "dilute it further".
In the meantime, child rights NGOs are preparing for a six-weeks session and reports are being submitted to the Commission as normal. Reports submitted under item 13 (rights of the child) so far include:
- Report of the Secretary-General on the Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child
- Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on the Situation of the Abduction of Children in Africa
- Annual Report of the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict (Ms. Karin Sham-Poo)
- Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Ssale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (Mr. Juan Miguel Petit)
During the weeks when child rights are on the agenda of the Commission session, CRIN offers daily updates on discussions, negotiations and other relevant meetings taking place in Geneva. A special webpage contains links to all relevant information, UN Reports and news, or you can sign up to our special Commission CRINMAIL for daily updates. The first issue will be sent this week.
More information
CRIN website
Page on the 62nd session of the Commission on Human Rights
News page on the reform of the Commission
Subgroup on the Commission on Human Rights
Previous CRINMAIL on the draft Resolution
UN websites
Reform the UN
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights - Commission on Human Rights
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights - Human Rights Council
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PALESTINE: Over 200 Palestinian Children Arrested in Two Months [news]
[RAMALLAH, 2 March 2006] - Israeli occupation forces are arresting scores of Palestinian children each week, bringing the number of juveniles currently held in appalling conditions in Israeli detention centres and prisons to new record levels, reveled today Defence for Children International Palestine Section (DCI/PS), a member of CRIN.
Information gathered by the DCI/PS shows that since the start of 2006 over 230 Palestinian children have been arrested, with the Israeli army appearing to target in particular youths from the Bethlehem Nablus and Jenin areas of the West Bank. The scale of arrests over the past two months brings the number of Palestinian children in Israeli custody to almost 400. This represents a significant increase on the already-inexcusably high numbers of recent years and marks a further indication of the scant regard Israeli pays to Palestinian children's rights and to international legal instruments.
In interviews with DCI/PS lawyers, children have told how upon their arrest they are handcuffed and blindfolded before being bundled into a military jeep and taken to interrogation centres in nearby settlements or military camps. Still dazed and confused from the arrest, and often having been beaten by soldiers inside the jeep, the children are taken immediately for interrogation in which police and soldiers hurl abuse, threats and sometimes kicks and punches to extract some form of admission from the terrified child. Confessions obtained from this brutalising procedure, which contravenes every legal and moral guideline regarding the questioning of suspects, are deemed sufficient evidence by the Israeli military authorities not only to charge the child, but to charge others implicated in the confession.
Following interrogation, child detainees are incarcerated in cramped and squalid conditions in detention centres across the West Bank to await trial – only a handful of cases are granted bail despite clear and universally-accepted international laws stating that the detention of juveniles should “be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time”. Although such centres are classified as temporary holding facilities, DCI/PS lawyers note that increasingly children sentenced for six months are serving the entire prison term in these detention centres, lacking even the most basic needs such as access to adequate food and washing facilities, and deprived of contact with family and healthcare professionals.
More information
DCI/PS website
CRIN's theme page on children in conflict with the law
CRIN's website on the UN Study on Violence against Children
Report of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories
International Conference "Kids Behind Bars" held in Palestine in July 2005
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LIBYA: Women, and Girls Locked Up Indefinitely Without Charge [publication]
The Libyan government is arbitrarily detaining women and girls indefinitely in “social rehabilitation” facilities, Human Rights Watch said in a report released this week. Officially portrayed as protective homes for women and girls “vulnerable to engaging in moral misconduct,” these facilities are de facto prisons.
The 40-page report, A Threat to Society? Arbitrary Detention of Women and Girls for “Social Rehabilitation, documents numerous and serious human rights abuses that women and girls suffer in these facilities. These include violations of their rights to liberty, freedom of movement, personal dignity, privacy and due process.
Libyan authorities are holding many women and girls in these facilities who have committed no crime, or who have completed a sentence. Some are there for no reason other than that they were raped, and are now ostracised for staining their families’ “honour.” Officials transferred the majority of these women and girls to these facilities against their will, while those who came voluntarily did so because no genuine shelters for victims of violence exist in Libya.
“These facilities are far more punitive than protective,” said Farida Deif, Middle East and North Africa researcher for the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch and author of the report. “How can they be called shelters when most of the women and girls we interviewed told us they would escape if they could?”
“Social rehabilitation” facilities have a distinctly prison-like character. The women and girls sleep in locked quarters and are not allowed to leave the gates of the compound. The custodians sometimes subject them to long periods of solitary confinement, occasionally in handcuffs, for trivial reasons like “talking back.” They are tested for communicable diseases without their consent upon entry, and most are forced to endure invasive virginity examinations. Some residents are as young as 16, but authorities provide no education, except weekly religious instruction.
These women and girls have no opportunity to contest their confinement in a court of law, and typically have no legal representation. The exit requirements of “social rehabilitation” facilities are in themselves arbitrary and coercive. There is no way out unless a male relative takes custody of the woman or girl or she consents to marriage, often to a stranger who comes to the facility looking for a wife.
For more information, contact:
Human Rights Watch
350 Fifth Avenue, 34th floor
New York, NY 10118-3299, US
Tel: + 1 212 216 1837
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.hrw.org
Read A Threat to Society? Arbitrary Detention of Women and Girls for “Social Rehabilitation
Visit CRIN's theme page on children in conflict with the law
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DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO: The Invention of Child Witches [publication]
A new report has been launched by Save the Children to highlight the issue of children accused of witchcraft in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The Invention of Child Witches: Social Cleansing, Religious Commerce and the Difficulties of Being a Parent in an Urban Culture discusses the role of the family, revivalist churches and the state in such accusations and makes recommendations for tackling the problem.
Children are stigmatised for many reasons and the family dynamic and attitude of the parents or guardians play a decisive role in this. The severe financial pressure faced by parents and the sudden deaths that can occur (often AIDS or malaria-related) cause crisis in the family structure. The combination of external threats faced by families pushes parents or guardians to negatively magnify a child’s individual characteristics (such as disability, bad behaviour, changes due to puberty) to the point where they see them as being signs of witchcraft.
The final blow is delivered by the revivalist churches, which confirm or ‘discover’ signs of witchcraft. Indeed, many religious and magical movements, whether Catholic, Pentecostal, African or fetishist, fuel hatred and violence against children. Most of the churches operate on a profit-making basis and nearly all of those practicing exorcism will put on a real performance for the purposes of financial gain.
Recommendations:
- to strengthen the awareness raising work that has already begun with religious leaders.
- to increase State regulation of the way in which churches operate and create mechanisms for monitoring churches that may be mistreating and abusing children and adults accused of witchcraft.
- to strengthen work with parents through discussion and awareness raising groups.
- to increase knowledge of violence against children as a first step towards an action plan to prevent violence. This programme must, however, form part of the national strategy for social protection.
For more information, contact:
Save the Children UK
1 St John's Lane, London EC1M 4AR, United Kingdom
Tel: + 44 20 7012 6400; Fax: + 44 20 7012 6963
Website: http://www.savethechildren.org.uk
Read The Invention of Child Witches: Social Cleansing, Religious Commerce and the Difficulties of Being a Parent in an Urban Culture
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NETHERLANDS: International Conference on Early Childhood Education [event]
Date: 9-10 March 2006
Location: Arnhem, Netherlands
Cito Deutschland GmbH is organising an International Conference on Early Childhood Education to discuss worldwide developments and trends in early childhood education with policy-makers, scientists, decision-makers and other experts in the field.
The conference aims to show what theories can mean in practice for the education of young children; show the importance of the education of young children in professionalising the field; show the preventive effects of early childhood education; show the main approaches in early childhood education in Europe and in the United States of America; show which curricula are effective and which approach would be best - a holistic approach or a more specific approach; stimulate policy-makers to allocate funds for the education of young children.
For more information, contact:
Cito Deutschland GmbH
PO Box 1034. 6801, MG. Arnhem, Netherlands
Tel: +31 26 3521441
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.cito.com
More information here
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