27 July 2006 - CRINMAIL 801
Special Edition on Harmful Traditional Practices
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- INTRODUCTION: Harmful Traditional Practices and International Instruments
- FORCED MARRIAGES: Next Report of the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking [call for information]
- SOUTH AFRICA: Initiation-Related Deaths in the Eastern Cape Province [news]
- KENYA: Girl Dies after Trying to Perform Female Genital Mutilation on Herself [news]
- UNITED KINGDOM: Child Abuse Linked to Accusations of "Possession" or "Witchcraft" [report]
- TURKEY: From Honour Killings to Honour Suicides [news]
- CAMPAIGNS
- WOMEN AND GIRLS: Violence Against Women – Issues, Research and Policy [course]
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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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INTRODUCTION: Harmful Traditional Practices and International Instruments
The launch of the Secretary-General Study on Violence Against Children is scheduled to take place on October ninth at the General Assembly in New York. Professor Paulo Sergio Pinheiro, the Independent Expert who is leading the Study, has indicated that the report will recommend prohibition of all forms of harmful traditional practices. Although there is sometimes disagreement as to what constitutes such practices, the Study lists them as follows:
- female genital mutilation (cutting of a girls’ sexual parts);
- child sexual abuse, including girls married very young or being forced to marry;
- honour killings, where men kill girls in the name of family ’honour’, for example for having sex outside marriage, or refusing an arranged marriage.
Several of the Regional Consultations for the UN Study, in their outcome documents, recommend a ban on harmful traditional practices, including:
- In East and Southern Africa:
- Traditional harmful practices should be criminalized and child marriage should be banned.
- Implement policies and programmes to discourage the system of dowry and establish community support system for the protection of married girls;
- Amend existing laws, as a priority, to incriminate the practice of FGM; impose harsh punishments on crimes of honour, while ensuring that the appropriate enforcement mechanisms are put in place and operational.
- Vote in laws abolishing excision and put in place measures for applying these laws;
- Raise the minimum legal age of marriage to 18 and institute parity between men and women regarding the age of marriage;
- Encourage a wide debate in national and local forums on traditional and modern (paedophilia, sex tourism, pornography) practices that are harmful to children, including the effects of the HIV/AIDS pandemic: involve traditional and modern media forms; concentrate on the needs identified by the young people themselves particularly regarding questions of reproductive health;
- Introduce into all types and levels of teaching curricula, training modules on the fight against harmful traditional practices, the prevention of HIV/AIDS and the culture of peace.
Find out below what international human rights instruments say about harmful traditional practices.
What the Convention on the Rights of the Child says about harmful traditional practices:
Article 24.3
States Parties shall take all effective and appropriate measures with a view to abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children.
What the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child says about harmful traditional practices:
Article 21
Protection against Harmful Social and Cultural Practices
1. States Parties to the present Charter shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate harmful social and cultural practices affecting the welfare, dignity, normal growth and development of the child and in particular:
(a) those customs and practices prejudicial to the health or life of the child; and
(b) those customs and practices discriminatory to the child on the grounds of sex or other status.
2. Child marriage and the betrothal of girls and boys shall be prohibited and effective action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify the minimum age of marriage to be 18 years and make registration of all marriages in an official registry compulsory.
Other instruments include:
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9494&flag=report
Further information
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FORCED MARRIAGES: Next Report of the Special Rapporteur on Trafficking [call for information]
The Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially women and children, Ms Sigma Huda, will devote her next thematic report to the aspects of the issue of forced marriages that are relevant to her mandate.
She has prepared a questionnaire to gather information on this subject, in English, French and Spanish. The Special Rapporteur would be grateful if responses could reach her no later than 31 October, so that they can be reflected in her next report to the Human Rights Council.
Please send your responses to the questionnare as well as other relevant information to Ms. Rachel Rico-Balzan: [email protected] and Geneviève Clottey: [email protected]. Fax: +41 22 9179006.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=9480
Further information
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SOUTH AFRICA: Initiation-Related Deaths in the Eastern Cape Province [news]
[29 June 2006] - A South African teenager became the ninth youth to die this year during the initiation process, which involves weeks spent living in the bush, followed by circumcision. Others died from circumcisions that led to infection or gangrene.
South Africa has taken steps to reduce the number of initiation-related deaths, but fatalities still occur every year - many in the Eastern Cape. In the latest case, a group of youths had been kept in the mountains for three weeks and denied food, Eastern Cape provincial health department spokesman Sizwe Kupelo said.
"They look like skeletons," Mr Kupelo told the South African Press Association, adding that a man who had posed as a traditional healer was expected to be arrested in connection with the death of one boy. "We don't understand why a human being can do something like this. This is against the custom, it is contradicting custom," Mr Kupelo said.
On Monday, another Eastern Cape youth died as the result of a botched circumcision - the eighth since the start of the current winter initiation season - and two more were hospitalised. One of the two who are in hospital was reportedly circumcised by a traditional healer registered by the government in terms of a scheme to reduce the number of botched circumcisions.
There has been particular concern over circumcisions being carried out by inexperienced practitioners, in unhygienic conditions and using unsterilised implements.
[Source: BBC]
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9007&flag=news
The Committee on the Rights of the Child on male circumcision:
The Committee has expressed concern at male circumcision carried out in unsafe or unhygienic conditions:
“The Committee is concerned that male circumcision is carried out, in some instances, in unsafe medical conditions… The Committee recommends that the State Party take effective measures, including training for practitioners and awareness-raising, to ensure the health of boys and protect against unsafe medical conditions during the practice of male circumcision.” (South Africa IRCO, Add.122, para. 33)
“The Committee also recommends that the State Party address health risks associated with male circumcision.” (Lesotho IRCO, Add.147, para. 44)
Source: UNICEF (2002), Implementation Handbook on the Convention on the Rights of the Child, p. 368.
Further information
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KENYA: Girl Dies after Trying to Perform Female Genital Mutilation on Herself [news]
[23 June 2006] - Pamela Kathambi did the procedure on her own because she was being teased by her friends for not being circumcised in the remote village of Irindi. Her mother told the BBC that she had refused to allow her 15-year-old to undergo female circumcision last year.
Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is banned in Kenya, but remains common in some areas. In some communities it is believed that circumcision will maintain a girl's honour and is part of a girl's initiation into womanhood.
Julia Kanuu said she found her daughter lying in her bed on Sunday, complaining of a stomach-ache and she had asked for some tea. It was only after the tea had been made that Pamela admitted what she had done to herself. "She used to be called names by her age mates and friends - 'mukenye' - the name given to uncircumcised ladies," Mrs Kanuu said. "I realised that girls who are not circumcised have gone ahead with education and are doing well in life so I didn't want her to be circumcised."
The BBC's Wanyama Chebusiri says scores of villagers were milling around the family's homestead discussing the issue in low tones a day after her burial on Wednesday. Pamela's death is a loss to the village because she was a very hard-working lady who would have studied and become someone in the future," one woman said. A local chief in Meru district, central Kenya, said this was the first instance of self circumcision he had heard about and the government had stepped its anti-FGM campaign.
The FGM operation involves the partial or total removal of the external genital organs. It is practised in 28 countries, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa.
[Source: BBC]
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9495&flag=news
Facts about FGM
Number of girls and women who have undergone genital mutilation
Most of the girls and women who have undergone genital mutilation live in 28 African countries, although some live in Asia and the Middle East. They are also increasingly found in Europe, Australia, Canada and the USA, primarily among immigrants from these countries.
Today, the number of girls and women who have been undergone female genital mutilation is estimated at between 100 and 140 million. It is estimated that each year, a further 2 million girls are at risk of undergoing FGM.
Source: World Health Organisation, Fact Sheet on Female Genital Mutilation
Recent analysis reveals that some three million girls and women are cut each year on the African continent (Sub-Saharan Africa, Egypt and Sudan). Of these, nearly half are from two countries: Egypt and Ethiopia.
Source: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre: Changing a Harmful Social Convention: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (December 2005), p. 3.
African countries in which FGM is practiced in some form:
Benin* Burkina Faso* Cameroon* Central African Republic* Chad* Cote d’Ivoire* Democratic Republic of Congo* Djibouti* Egypt* Eritrea* Ethiopia* Gambia* Ghana* Guinea* Guinea-Bissau* Kenya* Liberia* Mali* Mauritania* Niger* Nigeria* Senegal* Sierra Leone* Somalia* Sudan* Tanzania* Togo* Uganda
Amnesty International: Female Genital Mutilation in Africa - Information by Country
Other countries FGM has been reported
Yemen, FGM has also been reported but not confirmed among certain populations in Jordan, Oman, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the Kurdish population in Iraq, India, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Source: UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre: Changing a Harmful Social Convention: Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting (December 2005), p.3.
Further information
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UNITED KINGDOM: Child Abuse Linked to Accusations of "Possession" or "Witchcraft" [report]
[LONDON, 29 June 2006] - Britain’s Children and Families Minister Beverley Hughes has announced that action has been stepped up to tackle child abuse linked to ‘possession’ and ‘witchcraft’ in the United Kingdom. A new report - Child Abuse Linked to Accusations of "Possession" or "Witchcraft", which was published last month, provides a review of cases already known to the relevant authorities and was commissioned by the Government to look at the extent of the problem.
A comprehensive cross-agency strategy has already been put in place to speed-up the identification of cases by local agencies and deal with the perpetrators, as well as to help prevent cases happening in the first place. Prevention depends on Local Authorities having strong links with new communities.
These measures complement work already ongoing across the Government and by the police to safeguard children from abuse. These include using specialist police investigators, arrangements at ports to help identify and look after vulnerable children travelling into the country and new instructions from the DFES spelling out to local agencies how to better identify cases and making clear what they should do to ensure that the children concerned are safeguarded. A new project funded by the Government will also intensify efforts to tackle the problem in London.
It is clear from the report that beliefs in "possession" and "witchcraft" have been a hidden problem in some parts of our society. We must act to ensure that society – including Government and everyone who works with children - actively roots out the problem and tackles it effectively.
The report states ‘the number of cases of child abuse linked to accusations of "possession" and "witchcraft" are small compared to the total number of children abused each year’ but that the nature of the cases is disturbing.
Children and Families Minister, Beverley Hughes said: "Abuse linked with a belief in "witchcraft" will not be tolerated. While thankfully the number of cases is relatively small, the abuse children suffer in such cases is truly horrific….Child abuse can never be acceptable in any culture, any community, in any circumstance. We have already stepped up action to identify more easily and quickly those children at risk of abuse linked to belief in "possession" or "witchcraft" and help prevent it happening in the first place.”
Read the full press release
For more information, contact:
Department for Education and Skills
Sanctuary Buildings, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3BT, United Kingdom
Tel: 0870 000 2288
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.dfes.gov.uk
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9149&flag=report
Further information
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TURKEY: From Honour Killings to Honour Suicides [news]
...Every few weeks in Batman and the surrounding area in southeast Anatolia, which is poor, rural and deeply influenced by conservative Islam, a young woman tries to take her life. Others have been stoned to death, strangled, shot or buried alive. Their offences ranged from stealing a glance at a boy to wearing a short skirt, wanting to go to the movies, being raped by a stranger or relative or having consensual sex.
Hoping to join the European Union, Turkey has tightened the punishment for attacks on women and girls who have had such experiences. But the violence has continued, if by different means: parents are trying to spare their sons from the harsh punishments associated with killing their sisters by pressing the daughters to take their own lives instead.
"Families of disgraced girls are choosing between sacrificing a son to a life in prison by designating him to kill his sister or forcing their daughters to kill themselves," said Yilmaz Akinci, who works for a rural development group. "Rather than losing two children, most opt for the latter option."
Women's groups here say the evidence suggests that a growing number of girls considered to be dishonored are being locked in a room for days with rat poison, a pistol or a rope, and told by their families that the only thing resting between their disgrace and redemption is death.
Batman (pronounced bot-MON) is a grim and dusty city of 250,000 people where religion is clashing with Turkey's official secularism. The city was featured in the latest novel by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk, "Snow," which chronicled a journalist's investigation of a suicide epidemic among teenage girls.
In the past six years, there have been 165 suicides or suicide attempts in Batman, 102 of them by women. As many as 36 women have killed themselves since the start of this year, according to the United Nations. The organization estimates that 5,000 women are killed each year around the world by relatives who accuse them of bringing dishonor on their families; the majority of the killings are in the Middle East.
Last month, the United Nations dispatched a special envoy to Turkey to investigate. The envoy, Yakin Erturk, concluded that while some suicides were authentic, others appeared to be "honor killings disguised as a suicide or an accident."...
Psychologists here say social upheavals in a region rocked by terrorism have played a role in the suicides. Many of the victims come from families in rural villages who have been displaced from the mountains to the cities because of warfare between Turkey and a Kurdish guerrilla group that wants to create an independent state for Kurds in southeastern Turkey.
Young women… who have previously led protected lives under the rigid moral strictures of their families and Islam, are suddenly finding themselves in the modern Turkey of Internet dating and MTV. The shift can create dangerous tensions, sometimes lethal ones, between their families and the secular values of the republic that the young women seek to embrace.
The price can be heavy. When a woman is suspected of engaging in sexual relations out of wedlock, her male relatives convene a family council to decide her sentence. Once news of the family's shame has spread to the community, the family typically rules that it is only through death that its honor can be restored.
The European Union has warned Turkey that it is closely monitoring its progress on women's rights and that failure to progress could impede its drive to enter the union.
Until recently, a family member of a dishonoured girl, usually a brother younger than 18, would carry out the death sentence and receive a short prison sentence because of his youth. Sentences also were reduced under the defence that a relative had been provoked to commit murder.
But in the past two years, Turkey has revamped its penal code and imposed life sentences for such killings, known as honour killings, regardless of the killer's age. This has prompted some families to take other steps, such as forcing their daughters to commit suicide or killing them and disguising the deaths as suicides...
[Source: New York Times]
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9496&flag=news
Further information
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CAMPAIGNS
Amnesty International: Global Campaign to Stop Violence against Women
http://web.amnesty.org/actforwomen/index-eng
International Campaigns against Honour Killings
http://www.stophonourkillings.com/
No Circ
http://www.nocirc.org
Campaign against Honour Killings in Turkey
http://honourkillings.gn.apc.org/index.htm
Crusade against Female Infanticide
http://www.aidindia.net/deskfemale.htm
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WOMEN AND GIRLS: Violence Against Women – Issues, Research and Policy [course]
The course will cover:
- violence against women: frameworks, framings and methods;
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intimate partner violence; rape and sexual assault;
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harmful traditional practices in a globalised world;
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sexual exploitation; issues and debates.
Delivered over five days, the first two days will focus on a critical engagement with theories, definitions and research methods, including a historical overview of feminist theory in relation to violence against women. Subsequent sessions will explore specific forms of violence against women.
Teaching dates for the next course running in the autumn semester are:
Friday 27 October
Thursday 9 and Friday 10 October
Thursday 7 and Friday 8 December
These courses are aimed at professionals currently working in the statutory or voluntary sector who wish to:
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Conduct internal evaluation, monitoring and small scale research projects;
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Develop and extend specialist services dealing with child and/or woman abuse;
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Undertake policy development at a local, regional or national level where they have responsibility for delivering support and advocacy services, co-ordinating multi-agency for and/or improving the response of the criminal justice and/or health sectors
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Deliver government and or agency policy commitments with respect to Safeguarding Children, addressing domestic violence, rape, FGM, forced marriage, sexual exploitation and other forms of violence against women.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=9497&flag=event
For more information, contact:
Child and Woman Abuse Study Unit (CWASU)
London Metropolitan University
Ladbroke House, 62-66 Highbury Grove, London N5 2AD, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)20 7133 5014; Fax: +44 (0)20 7133 5026
Email: [email protected]
Website: http://www.londonmet.ac.uk
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