CRINMAIL 51:

In this issue:

Inhuman sentencing of children

CRIN will launch a major global campaign at the UN in New York in mid-October to end inhuman sentencing of child offenders. We are developing detailed individual reports on states which reveal that laws still allow executions, life sentences and corporal punishment as sentences for crimes committed by children.

We believe that one of the reasons why this barbaric treatment of children continues is the lack of visibility of the reality of inhuman sentencing. While it is relatively easy to research the legal frameworks which allow inhuman sentencing, it is very difficult to find personal testimony and/or individual cases. If this campaign is to make a real impact and achieve quick action to stop inhuman sentencing, we need your help NOW.  Please send immediately to [email protected] - or tell us where to access - any material which gets across the reality of these violations: personal testimonies, photos, recordings, official reports, statistics, media reports.

Full details of CRIN's campaign will be launched on the website on 13 October. CRIN believes that international campaigning alone is unlikely to force governments to move quickly enough to prohibit inhuman sentencing. But we hope that coordination and solidarity – achieving linked campaigns internationally, across regions and nationally – can accelerate change. CRIN’s aim is to achieve a strong international and regional context for progress – and to support national campaigns in any other way we can. Read more.

One year on

In her very first report to the United Nations General Assembly, Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children (SRSG), outlines her vision and priorities to follow up on the Recommendations of the UN Study on Violence against Children. Read more. 

In particular, she highlights the need to accelerate progress in strategic areas and the special emphasis the Special Representative will place on three overarching recommendations of the study, namely, the development in each State of a comprehensive strategy on violence against children; the introduction of an explicit national legal ban on all forms of violence, in all settings; and the consolidation of data and research in this field. Read more here, or download the report (in pdf) here.

 
The good news

The Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children and the African Child Policy Forum report on progress towards the prohibition of corporal punishment in their joint newsletter focusing on Africa. The highlight of this issue is the news that Tunisia and Kenya have achieved full prohibition of corporal punishment of children – the first African states to do so! Read more.

In other positive moves, the High Court in Bangladesh has ordered the government to stop corporal punishment in schools. It comes after a 10-year-old boy, who had allegedly been beaten by his teacher, committed suicide. The court has also asked the education authorities to report within two months on measures taken to investigate and punish perpetrators cases of corporal punishment. Corporal punishment was outlawed in Bangladeshi schools in the 1990s, but beatings of pupils remain widespread. Read more.

Across in Brazil, President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva sent a bill to Congress in July which would outlaw any cruel or degrading treatment that humiliates or seriously threatens children, including spanking. Lula said it was not meant to prevent parents educating their children but that everyone knew that spanking didn't educate children any better than talking to them. Parents who ignored the law would be given a warning, and repeat offenders could be ordered to attend child protection classes, or even undergo psychiatric treatment. Read more.

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Express yourself

More than 200 young people recently joined forces in Accra, Ghana, to follow up the implementation of the UN's Study on Violence against Children. The goal of the forum was to establish a formal mechanism of child participation and support for the emergence of a network for children and young people involved in bringing an end to violence against children. The forum was coordinated by Save the Children and Plan International. Read more.

Little conversation, even less action

As criticism over the Pope's inaction following revelations of widespread sexual abuse of children by priests increases, the Vatican is also said to be 13 years late on its reporting obligation under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child! Despite sending repeated reminders, the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has received no explanation from the Holy See for why it missed a 1997 deadline, according to the Committee's chairwoman Yanghee Lee. "I've made contact with the Holy See on several occasions," Lee said in an interview with the Associated Press, "I haven't received anything." The Vatican's mission in Geneva declined to comment. Read more.

Reforming the arbitrary

In other news, Amnesty International (AI) is calling on Sudan to abolish flogging of women and girls. Thousands of people are reportedly arrested every year in Khartoum for wearing what is arbitrarily deemed "indecent" clothing. AI is calling on Sudan to repeal the public order regime, fulfil its human rights obligations under international law, and remove the penalty of flogging for crimes under the public order regime as it is a cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. Read more.

The High Committee for Issuing Fatwas at the Kurdistan Islamic Scholars Union, the highest Muslim religious authority in Iraqi Kurdistan for religious pronouncements and rulings, issued its fatwa on the continuing prevalence of the practice of FGM in Iraqi Kurdistan. The fatwa notes that the practice is not prescribed in Islam, however, it does not call for an outright ban on this harmful traditional practice, reports Human Rights Watch (HRW). Read more.

The fatwa was issued shortly after HRW published a report on the practice which documents the experiences of young girls and women who undergo FGM against a backdrop of conflicting messages from some religious leaders and healthcare professionals about the practice's legitimacy and safety. Read more.

Stopping sexual violence

 The Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Abuse came into force on 1 July. The first of its kind, this new instrument tackles all forms of sexual violence against children, including abuse perpetrated within the family environment. Apart from sexual abuse, child prostitution and pornography and coercing children into participating in pornographic performances, the convention also deals with grooming and sex tourism. Read more.

In light of this new Convention, the Council of Europe will be launching a pan-European campaign to encourage ratification and implementation, but also to raise public awareness and empower children to break the silence and to find ways to prevent and report sexual abuse of children.

The Campaign will be launched in Rome, Italy, on 29-30 November 2010.

JUCONI Mexico is inviting professionals (field workers, educators, therapists, social workers and trainers) to share interventions, approaches, methods and techniques which they have found effective in helping marginalised children, youth and families to recover from the harm caused by family violence at a meeting in Mexico at the end of November. Read more.

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Further information

More news, reports and events can be found on the Violence website here: http://www.crin.org/violence/resources/reports/index.asp

The revamped website on Violence against Children is now available in:

French: http://www.crin.org/violence/francais/

Spanish: http://www.crin.org/violence/espanol/

Arabic and Russian coming soon.

{THE LAST WORD}

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