9 May 2006 - CRINMAIL 778
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- HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: Election of 47 Members Today [news]
- LIBERIA: Sexual Exploitation of Children by Aid Workers [publication]
- CHILD LABOUR: New ILO Global Monitoring Report [publication]
- MATERNAL HEALTH: State of the World's Mothers 2006 [publication]
- EUROPE: Children's Participation in the Policy-Making Process [event]
- EMPLOYMENT: NGO Group - UNICEF UK [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 If you do not receive this email in html format, you will not be able to see some hyperlinks in the text. At the end of each item we have therefore provided a full URL linking to a web page where further information is available.
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HUMAN RIGHTS COUNCIL: Election of 47 Members Today [news]
[LONDON, 9 May 2006] - The United Nations Commission on Human Rights ended its last session on 27th March after adopting a Resolution to transfer all its work to the recently created and stronger Human Rights Council.
Sixty-four UN Member States have announced their candidacies for election to the new 47-member Human Rights Council. The elections are scheduled to take place today at 10am at the General Assembly in New York. The Council will then hold its first meeting on 19 June.
Candidates will be elected directly and individually by a majority of the Members of the General Assembly and shall not be eligible for immediate re-election after two consecutive terms. The 64 countries that have announced their candidacies are:
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African States (13 seats): Algeria, Cameroon, Djibouti, Gabon, Ghana, Kenya, Mali, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia, Zambia
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Asian States (13 seats): Bahrain, Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Iran (Islamic Republic of), Iraq, Japan, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand
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Eastern European States (6 seats): Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Czech Republic, Georgia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russian Federation, Slovenia, Ukraine
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Latin American and Caribbean States (8 seats): Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay, Venezuela (Bolivarian Republic)
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Western European and Other States (7 seats): Canada, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The United States, which voted against the Human Rights Council Resolution, have not submitted their candidacies, unhappy with the fact that the new membership modalities still allow human rights abusers to be elected to the Council. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan last month said he hoped the US would continue to play an active role in defending universal human rights and support the new Council, despite its decision not to take part in the elections.
Human Rights Watch, which has launched its website analysing candidates’ human rights records, has urged Member States not to vote for the seven following countries, based on their human rights records: Azerbaijan, China, Cuba, Iran, Pakistan, Russia and Saudi Arabia.
As part of its Asian Campaign on the Human Rights Council, Forum-Asia has produced a briefing paper analysing pledges submitted by 11 of the Asian candidates, noting that comparatively, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Malaysia and China have provided the lowest number of specific commitments in their pledges.
Furthermore, Amnesty International has prepared a summary overview of pledges and commitments made by each candidate matched against the suggested elements published by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The purpose of the table is to assist Member States in assessing each candidate's proposed contribution to the Human Rights Council.
The results of the elections will be published on the CRIN website as soon as they become publicly available.
NGO call for action
The NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Subgroup on the Human Rights Council, is calling on the Human Rights Council to act on four specific child rights issues: violence against children - sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography - children affected by armed conflict and displacement - children in conflict with the law.
The Subgroup presented a call for action to all Permanent Representatives at the United Nations in Geneva on 28 April 2006. NGOs, members of Subgroup, feel that children have specific needs and concerns that necessitate the adoption of an explicit children’s rights focus by the Council.
They are also urging the Human Rights Council to ensure meaningful and substantive participation of children’s rights NGOs and other independent human rights institutions for children’s rights in the work of the Council including consultations during the universal periodical review. They also look forward to the innovative creation of a specific space to allow children themselves to participate in the work of the HRC.
For more information, contact Roberta Cecchetti: [email protected]
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8208
Further information
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LIBERIA: Sexual Exploitation of Children by Aid Workers [publication]
[LONDON, 9 May 2006] - Save the Children UK is revealing in a study released today that children in Liberia are sexually exploited by humanitarian workers, peacekeepers and local businessmen. The study was conducted in temporary camps for those displaced by the civil war and amongst those recently repatriated to their towns and villages of origin after the end of the war.
Despite commitments made in 2002 by NGOs, the UN and peacekeepers to improve the worldwide monitoring of recruitment and staff conduct, vulnerable children are still exchanging sex for basic necessities such as money to attend school or food to feed their families.
During the study in Liberia children and community members consistently reported that a high proportion of girls in their camps were being sexually exploited by adults in positions of power. They reported that adults providing humanitarian assistance, peacekeepers and wealthy individuals regularly buy under-age sex.
Save the Children UK Chief Executive Jasmine Whitbread said: “This cannot continue. It must be tackled. Men who use positions of power to take advantage of vulnerable children must be fired. More must be done to support children and their families to make a living without turning to this kind of desperation.”
Save the Children welcomes the new Liberian Government’s commitment to stamp out corruption and rape, and urges President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf to tackle the high levels of sexual exploitation of children.
Representatives of Government Ministries, International NGOs, UN agencies and UNMIL representatives in Liberia have gathered last Friday to urgently and collectively address this issue.
In March 2006 a collective of international NGOs, of which Save the Children is a key partner, launched a new set of materials Keeping Children Safe to enable all NGOs to attain high standards of child protection.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8184
For more information, contact:
Save the Children UK
1 St John's Lane
London EC1M 4AR
Tel: + 44 20 7012 6400; Fax: + 44 20 7012 6963
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.savethechildren.org.uk
Further information
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CHILD LABOUR: New ILO Global Monitoring Report [publication]
[GENEVA, 5 May 2006] - Child labour, especially in its worst forms, is in decline for the first time across the globe, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said in a new, cautiously optimistic report entitled The End of Child Labour: Within reach.
The ILO report also says that if the current pace of the decline were to be maintained and the global momentum to stop child labour continued, it believes child labour could feasibly be eliminated, in most of its worst forms, in 10 years. The new report says the actual number of child labourers worldwide fell by 11 per cent between 2000 and 2004, from 246 million to 218 million.
What's more, the number of children and youth aged 5-17 trapped in hazardous work decreased by 26 per cent, to reach 126 million in 2004 as opposed to 171 million in the previous estimate. Among younger child labourers aged 5-14, this drop was even more pronounced at 33 per cent, says the report.
Four years ago, the ILO issued the most comprehensive report to date on global child labour. Applying the same statistical methodology used in that report, the ILO finds a significant decline in child labour since then.
The report attributed the reduction in child labour to increased political will and awareness and concrete action, particularly in the field of poverty reduction and mass education that has led to a "worldwide movement against child labour". Through its International Programme on the Elimination of Child Labour (IPEC), the ILO assists in building national capacity to deal with child labour and providing policy advice. In addition, through direct action, the Programme over the past decade has reached some 5 million children. These initiatives have played a significant catalytic role, both in mobilising action and demonstrating how child labour can be eliminated.
Over the last five years, IPEC has helped several countries put in place appropriate time-bound measures to eliminate the worst forms of child labour. The report calls on all member States that haven't done so yet to adopt time-bound plans by 2008. According to the report, more than 30 member States of the ILO have already set time-bound targets with a similar or even earlier target date than 2016 to abolish the worst forms of child labour.
Despite considerable progress in the fight against child labour, the report also highlights important challenges, particularly in agriculture, where seven out of ten child labourers work. Other challenges include addressing the impact of HIV/AIDS on child labour, and building stronger links between child labour and youth employment concerns.
The report calls for greater national efforts, involving organisations representing employers and workers, as well as governments - the partners that make up the tripartite ILO. It also calls for the strengthening of the worldwide movement to make child labour history. Meeting the UN Millennium Development Goals by 2015 would further help to eradicate child labour, the report says.
However, the Stop Child Labour (SCL) campaign has expressed disappointment at the report. It says it excludes hundreds of millions of children that work as domestic and agricultural labourers. As these ‘invisible’ children work at home and are unpaid they are not calculated in the official ILO statistics. The SCL campaign also criticises the ILO action plan in the report for its narrow focus on the worst forms of child labour. SCL worries that this report holds out no hope for the millions of children trapped in other forms of labour.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8179
Further information
For more information, contact:
International Labour Organisation
International Programme for the Elimination of Child Labour
Pulchowk, Lalitpur, PO Box 8971, UK
Tel: +977 1 550691; Fax: +977 1 550714
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://ww.ilo.org/kathmandu
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MATERNAL HEALTH: State of the World's Mothers 2006 [publication]
[WESTPORT, CT, 9 May 2006] - For most children in the developing world, the most dangerous day of their lives is their birthday. Of more than 10 million children under the age of 5 who die each year, about 1 in 5 - an estimated 2 million babies - die within the first 24 hours of life, according to the seventh annual State of the World’s Mothers report issued today by Save the Children USA. According to the report, an additional 1 million babies die during days 2 through 7. A total of 4 million babies die during the first month of life.
“The first hours, days and weeks of a baby’s life are critical. Yet, only a tiny minority of babies in poor countries receive proper health care during this highly vulnerable period,” said Save the Children President and CEO Charles MacCormack, in issuing the report. “The most simple health measures taken for granted in the United States can mean the difference between life and death for these babies. Low-cost interventions such as immunising women against tetanus and providing a skilled attendant at birth could reduce newborn deaths by as much as 70 per cent if provided universally.”
The report notes that most newborn deaths are the result of preventable or treatable causes such as infections, complications at birth and low birth weight.
“Newborn deaths are one of the world’s most neglected health problems,” said MacCormack. “While there has been significant progress in reducing deaths among children under age 5 over the past decade, we have made little progress in reducing mortality rates for babies during the first month of life. In fact, newborn deaths are so common in many parts of the developing world that parents put off naming their babies until they are a week to 3 months old.”
The report found that 10 countries account for more than two-thirds of all newborn deaths worldwide, with the highest number of deaths taking place in India (more than 1 million) and China (416,000). However, because of their large populations, neither India nor China has the highest rate of newborn deaths.
Overall, the region of the world with the highest newborn death rates is sub-Saharan Africa where 1 out of 5 mothers has lost at least one baby in childbirth, the report said. The industrialised world, including the United States, accounts for only about 1 per cent of all newborn deaths worldwide.
In evaluating the well-being of mothers and newborns in 53 low-income countries, Save the Children ranked Liberia and Afghanistan at the bottom, and placed Vietnam and Nicaragua at the top. Liberia’s newborn mortality rate is more than five times that of Vietnam.
The report also evaluated 25 middle-income developing countries and placed Iraq at the bottom (6 deaths per 100 births) and Colombia at the top (1 death per 100 births).
Among 33 industrialised countries reviewed in the report, the United States ranked next to last, ahead of Latvia and tied with Hungary, Malta, Poland and Slovakia. The report said the US newborn mortality rate is nearly three times higher than that of Finland, Iceland, Norway and Japan.
Among the world’s developing countries, the report singled out Vietnam, Nicaragua, Eritrea, Tajikistan, Indonesia and Philippines as making significant strides in saving newborn lives despite limited financial resources.
Vietnam, the report noted, has a per capita gross domestic product (GDP) of under $3,000, but it has still kept newborn death rates relatively low by aggressively assisting mothers prior to and during childbirth. In Vietnam, more than half of the women use modern contraception and nearly all pregnant women receive prenatal care and the services of a skilled birth attendant.
In contrast, Angola, with nearly the same per capita GDP as Vietnam, has a newborn death rate more than four times higher - 5 deaths per 100 births. In Angola, only 5 per cent of women use modern contraception, more than half of the population has no access to health care and more than half of all babies are born without the assistance of skilled personnel.
Going beyond the numbers, the report also offers dramatic accounts in developing countries of how communities are working together to reduce newborn deaths. For example, in Mali, grandmothers, who are highly respected and influential in family matters, were enlisted as agents of change. They were educated on simple actions to protect the health of mother and baby. As a result, the number of mothers who provided nothing but breast milk during the first three days increased by 27 per cent, and the number of mothers whose infants received newborn care rose 17 per cent in targeted areas.
The report calls on governments to increase their political and financial support for these proven solutions that save the lives of mothers and babies. The American public is asked to support increased international assistance for newborn, child and maternal heath that will help save lives.
In addition to its special focus on newborns and mothers, the report includes Save the Children’s seventh annual Mothers’ Index that identifies the best - and worst - countries to be mother and child through a comprehensive look at their well-being in 125 countries. For the seventh year in a row, Scandinavian countries dominate the top tier of the rankings with Sweden taking first place. The United States and United Kingdom tie for 10th place. Niger is in last place.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8198
For more information, contact:
Save the Children USA
54 Wilton Road, Westport, CT 06880, US
Tel: +1 203 221 4000; Fax: +1 203 227 5667
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.savethechildren.org
Further information
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EUROPE: Children's Participation in the Policy-Making Process [event]
Date: 7 June 2006
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Eurochild AISBL is organising a reception in the European Parliament to hear from children themselves about what social exclusion means to them and how they have been involved in policy-making at different levels. Twelve children are invited from six different types of participation projects, for example:
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the Children and Youth Board in the UK that are actively involved in defining the UK government’s youth policy;
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the youth migration service in Lübben, Germany, where children from migrant backgrounds are helping to promote voluntary services and active citizenship;
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the Children’s Parliament in Cyprus, elected through school councils from across the country.
The children will have the chance to ask questions to a distinguished panel of decision-makers from the EU institutions.
Registration deadline: 12 May 2006
For more information, contact:
Eurochild AISBL
Rue de la Concorde, 53. 1050, Brussels, Belgium
Tel: +32 2 511 70 83; Fax: +32 2 511 72 98
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.eurochild.org
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8182
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EMPLOYMENT: NGO Group - UNICEF UK [job postings]
The NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child is a registered network with the mission to facilitate the promotion, implementation and monitoring of the CRC. It is a leading international forum for advocacy on children’s issues within and outside the United Nations. There are important developments within the United Nations human rights reform that may have serious implications for the advancement of child rights. The NGO Group is actively engaged in monitoring and influencing these processes to ensure that children’s rights and issues do not lose the gains made over the years. This coupled with the strong alliances with child rights NGOs/networks at regional, sub-regional and national levels on the CRC and other relevant themes places the NGO Group in a strong position to be a significant player in the global movement for child rights.
The NGO Group is seeking to recruit a new Coordinator to ensure that the organisation’s mission, strategies and programme plans are fulfilled with the full engagement of the Coordinating Committee (CoCo), staff and the membership of the network. The Coordinator will work under the overall management of the NGO Group’s Coordinating Committee and in collaboration with the employed staff at the NGO Group Secretariat.
Application deadline: 31 May 2006
For more information, contact:
NGO Group for the CRC
1, rue de Varembé, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: + 41 22 740 47 30; Fax: + 41 22 740 1145
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.crin.org/NGOGroupforCRC
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=8199
UNICEF UK Youth Voice is seeking to recruit new Youth Advisers among 12-17 year olds. Since 2004, Youth Advisers have played a major role in the work of UNICEF UK. They quizzed Tony Blair on MTV, hosted road shows for hundreds of young people all over the UK, and helped to launch UNICEF’s global campaign, Unite for Children, Unite against AIDS. Youth Advisers visit schools, speak to the press, and develop exciting new opportunities for young people to get involved in UNICEF’s work. They show how young people can use their rights to demand a world fit for children.
Application deadline: 1 July 2006
For more information, visit:
http://www.unicef.org.uk/youthvoice/news_item.asp?id=50
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