16 October 2009 - CRINMAIL CRC 21
___________________________________________________________
**NEWS IN BRIEF**
___________________________________________________________
To view this CRINMAIL online, visit: http://www.crin.org/email/crinmail_detail.asp?crinmailID=3196
This list provides specific information on the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Updates are sent during CRC sessions and on an ad hoc basis. Please feel free to forward these updates to others who may be interested. To contribute, email us at [email protected].
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.
___________________________________________________________
CRC: Committtee adopts concluding observations for 52 session [news]
Further information
For more information, contact:
UN OHCHR - Committee on the Rights of the Child
8-14 Avenue de la Paix, CH 1211 Geneva 10
Tel: +41 22 917 9000 ; Fax: +41 22 917 9022
Website: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/index.htm
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=21080
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CRC20: Launch of UN event celebrating 20th birthday of CRC [news]
Children, NGOs, State delegates, UN experts and advocates gathered today (8 October) at an event in Geneva to celebrate 20 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Organised by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, the theme of the conference has been designated 'Dignity, Development and Dialogue'. Over the course of the next two days, participants will discuss key issues related to the 'three Ds' in various workshops. Find out more about the event here
Chair of the Committee of the Rights of the Child, Yanghee Lee, began the morning’s presentations. She said a crucial element of the Convention was furthering a view of children as “beings rather than becomings.” She also noted the “unprecedented support of State Parties for the Convention.”
However, she also cautioned that there were a number of challenges impeding implementation of the Convention. She recognised the impact of the global economic downturn, with “the full effect on children yet to unfold.” Ms Lee also spoke of recent natural disasters, of the effect of climate change, and of ongoing conflicts on the realisation of children’s rights. She said that a lack of political will, the existence of numerous broad reservations to the Convention, and economic limitations were all problems to overcome.
Complaints procedure crucial
The existence of a complaints procedure to the CRC is, said Ms Lee, fundamental. She said: “we are asked how to make rights have real meaning, and in order for this to happen, effective remedies must be available...The Committee strongly believes [an Optional Protocol to establish such a procedure] will help the international community make a leap forward in terms of making children’s rights a reality.”
Ms. Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, then made a presentation. A former judge, she said: “Judges have always looked at the interests of the child rather than the rights of the child, so I have to say that I have learnt something by working on international children’s rights.”
Ms Pillay also supported the campaign to establish a complaints procedure. She said: “This mechanism could significantly strengthen the monitoring of the Convention and the furtherance of children’s rights. It is an issue that we will be following closely, and we will be supporting the working group [established to consider the drafting of such a procedure], scheduled to meet from 14 to 18 December.”
A flurry of other statements were made during the morning session, from UNICEF, and States parties to the Convention.
Swiss rapper Osir performed a track about the Convention, livening up the otherwise more sombre series of statements.
Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, emphasised that “trusting children is crucial for the realisation of children’s rights. We must trust them to be responsible.” He outlined three challenges to the implementation of the Convention.
Democracy in schools
Firstly, he said: “We must do more to allow children to take part, not just to make them heard but to respect their opinion, particularly at school.
“We need democratic schools – schools must not be in contrast to what we say in the CRC,” he said. Second, violence against children. “We are still in a situation where the majority of countries have not banned all corporal punishment of children,” he said.
“Why can we beat up a child but not an adult? Because children are better able to withstand violence than adults? Of course not.”
Finally, he emphasised that “we cannot leave any child behind. For example, in Europe, we have a major problem with Roma children, who do not have fair access to education. We have not done enough to ensure children with disabilities can go to school.”
Peter Newell, of the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, and chair of CRIN’s board of trustees, then spoke, highlighting the importance of Concluding Observations.
He said: “I’ve heard some people suggest the Concluding Observations are too long and too repetitive – but what is repetitive is the sustained refusal of so many States to accept and act on the inconvenient obligations they took on with ratification. Please don’t reduce the detail: it is essential for all our advocacy.”
Mr Newell went on to emphasise that the legal value of the CRC needed to be recognised. He said: “We need to equip ourselves now for a decade of insistence that the CRC is a legal instrument, bestowing legal obligations on states which must be enforceable by children and their representatives... It is going to be up to us, NGOs, and human rights institutions and individual lawyers, children’s organisations and other advocates to be creative in forcing a recognition of the legal force of the Convention.”
You can read the rest of Mr Newell’s speech here
Children attending the event then conducted a joint presentation on the meaning of the 'three Ds' - Dignity, Dialogue and Development.
The delegate from Norway said: "We believe dignity is the foundation of human rights. Do not consider us objects of rights but subjects. As children, we need to be acknowledged and valued as edqual contributors."
A delegate from the Dominican Republic added: "Children are of the future but they are of the present too," while a child representative from Colombia noted: "Dialogue means understanding, but understanding between all people. It is the way towards peace, understanding and respect. Without dialogue we cannot have peace. We would like to see adults communicating better with children. We want to see governments listening to what we have to say, and trusting us. We would also like to see parents being more than parents, but being friends too."
Blogs by youth reporters
Youth reporters were also on hand to monitor the event, while children and young people will act as rapporteurs during workshops, and make presentations.
Two of the reporters, Taylor from Canada, and Kamilla, from Norway, are writing blogs on their experiences of the event.
Visit Kamilla's blog here: http://www.plan-norge.no/Under18/UROBlogg.aspx
Visit Taylor's blog here: www.planyouth.org
Read observations from the Working Groups
Read recommendations from children and young people at the event
Read closing comments from children and young people
Further information
For more information, contact:
Child Rights Information Network
East Studio, 2 Pontypool Place, London, SE1 8QF
Tel: +44 (0)207 401 2257
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.crin.org
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=21035
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
COMPLAINTS PROCEDURE: Lingering doubts tackled [news]
[GENEVA, 8 October 2009] - Concerns about the establishment of a complaints procedure to the CRC were laid to rest at a lunchtime meeting, attended by dozens of participants, at the UN event to celebrate 20 years of the Convention.
Moderator Peter Newell led the defence, arguing: “It would be very clearly discriminatory to say that children can’t have a mechanism to pursue the full range of their rights through lack of resources or lack of adult organisation. “
For example, Mr Newell dismissed the suggestion that children may be liable to manipulation by adults seeking to invoke the procedure. He pointed out that similar arguments had been used to block the establishment of a parallel procedure for the Disability Convention.
He concluded: “To me, opposing the initiation of drafting of the OP to provide a communications procedure for the CRC is tantamount to challenging the very rationale of the Convention – upholding children as rights-holders, alongside the rest of us.” You can read Mr Newell’s speech in full here.
Ms Yanghee Lee, Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, explained that the Committee had spent a year and a half studying the issue of the communication procedure and how they would support the process. She said that the need for such a procedure was obvious and that children's rights were meaningless without some sort of procedure where children can speak out. “We are hoping that by next year we will have the drafting group set up so that we can start drafting immediately after the March session,” she said.
Among other comments, she said there was a need to consider the possibility of joint communications with other mandates, giving them more impact, and to consider how individual communications will add to the reporting process, as well as the UPR and other special procedures.
Ms Susana Villaran de la Puente, Member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, and also on the panel of speakers, said: “While groups of children cannot resort to effective remedies nationally, they must be able to internationally.
She said her region would benefit especially. “This mechanism is essential in Latin America. Hundreds of thousands of children can be better protected by just one case,” she said. “The system would no overlap in any way, and would in fact reinforce regional mechanisms. The relationship between them would be very important. In the regional system we do not have instrument that relates to all of the rights of the child, in the way that this one would. “
Change at national level
She added that the procedure would create change at national level. “The establishment of the procedure will also provide pressure for States to provide remedies at national level,” she said.
She concluded by arguing: “I have no doubt that the new procedure would be used, and that it would be used effectively. I am confident that we will all be able to surmount the special difficulties related to legal advocacy for children.
Among the subsequent interventions, Yanghee Lee, and former Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child Jaap Doek, agreed that the decision by the Human Rights Council to merely discuss the Optional Protocol, rather than begin drafting, was regrettable.
Representatives from Slovakia and Slovenia emphasised their country’s support of the procedure.
A State delegate from Sierra Leone noted that determining age for such a procedure will be very difficult because many children in Africa do not have a birth certificate.
*The event was organised by the NGO Group for the CRC and made possible thanks to the financial contributions of the Missions of Slovakia and Slovenia.
Further information:
For more information, contact:
Child Rights Information Network
East Studio, 2 Pontypool Place, London, SE1 8QF
Tel: +44 (0)207 401 2257
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.crin.org
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=21039
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
DENMARK: UN unhappy at criminal age proposal [news]
Members of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) have criticised the Danish government’s proposals to lower the age of responsibility to 14, saying that the U.N. wants the age of responsibility around the world generally raised instead.
Last week, Justice Minister Brian Mikkelsen said that a reduction in the age of criminal responsibility to 14 was within U.N. recommendations. Although a 2007 report from the CRC termed a criminal age of between 14 and 16 as acceptable, it also called on member countries to work to increase the criminal age.
“I don’t know enough about the minister to know whether he is looking for an alibi, but his comments resemble political comments in other countries where politicians consciously attempt to mislead the public,” says CRC former adviser Don Cipriani, who authored the draft of the United Nations view on the age at which children may be charged with a criminal offence.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is a body of 18 independent experts under the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“The CRC has repeatedly condemned reductions in the age of criminal responsibility, and the minister’s statement is clearly not a correct interpretation of recommendations from the Committee,” Cipriani says.
Current members of the CRC tend to agree.
“The Committee has always been against reducing the age of criminal responsibility. I am happy that the minister is using the United Nations as an argument, but of course I am not happy that he is using it in this way,” says CRC Member Maria Herczog, who adds that there is nothing to prove that a reduction reduces crime.
Herczog says she plans to question the Danish government next time the CRC is to study Danish conditions.
Other members of the Committee say they are worried at the signal effect that move will have on other countries.
“In Lithuania there is a debate about reducing the age of criminal responsibility from 14 to 12. Proponents of reductions in the new EU countries can now say that it Denmark can reduce from 15 to 14, then we can reduce from 14 to 13 or 12,” says CRC Member Dainius Puras.
'Re-writing'
The opposition Social Democratic Social Affairs Spokeswoman Mette Frederiksen says that Justice Minister Mikkelsen is using the United Nations as legitimacy in desperation at not being able to determine the government policy.
“There are many Conservatives who don’t like the idea of children going to prison. Everyone knows that it is the Danish People’s Party that has pushed through this reduction. So (Mikkelsen) is looking around to find something to hang it on – but even that doesn’t hold. At best, this is shoddy. At worst it is a conscious re-writing of the United Nations words,” Frederiksen says.
Further information
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=21064
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
**NEWS IN BRIEF**
New website: children and non-discrimination
http://www.crin.org/discrimination/
General Assembly: Global summit turns to children's rights
http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=21085
___________________________________________________________
The CRC CRINMAIL is an electronic mailing list of the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN). CRIN does not accredit, validate or substantiate any information posted by members to the CRINMAIL. The validity and accuracy of any information is the responsibility of the originator.
To subscribe, unsubscribe or view list archives, visit http://www.crin.org/email.
___________________________________________________________
