CRINMAIL 60:

In this issue:

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NEWS AND REPORT ROUND-UP

State violence

At least 2,600 people have been killed in Syria since protests began back in mid-March, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay has highlighted. The regime of President Al-Assad may be accountable for possible crimes against humanity, according a UN report from a Fact-Finding Mission, which additionally notes how “children have not only been targeted by security forces, but they have been repeatedly subject to the same human rights and criminal violations as adults, including torture, with no consideration for their vulnerable status.” 

Illustrating this is a report by Amnesty International, which reveals that 88 civilians, including 10 children, are believed to have been killed by security forces while in detention. Evidence of abuse sustained by those under the age of 18 includes bruising, whipping and burn marks, mutilation, bone and skull fractures and a broken neck.

The latest child victims of Al-Assad’s crackdown on pro-democracy protesters include a 12-year-old boy who was killed during a funeral procession in Douma near Damascus, another boy of 15 who died when soldiers opened fire in the northwestern village of Al-Rama, and a two-year-old girl who was shot dead in crossfire as her family attempted to flee the besieged city of Latakia. 

Elsewhere in the region, in Bahrain, a 14-year-old boy died after being hit by a tear gas canister thrown by riot police during a peaceful demonstration in the town of Sitra. Rights groups say security forces are using excessive force, firing heavy tear gas directly at protesters at close range. Previously, in May schoolgirls, some as young as 12, reported being detained at school by security forces, who subsequently beat them and threatened to rape them while holding them in detention. 

And in Libya, the bodies of three teenagers were discovered among 31 others in a mass grave near the western town of al-Qawalish. In the past three weeks, another 125 more bodies have been found in 12 different mass graves in and around the capital Tripoli, the International Committee of the Red Cross has revealed. The bodies of at least 200 men, women and children were also discovered in the Abu Salim hospital in Tripoli.  

Meanwhile, Save the Children has released its 2010 annual review of child rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, which among other things, highlights that 77 per cent of Palestinian children arrested in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Silwan suffered physical violence at the hands of Israeli soldiers while 46 per cent were verbally abused. Also on the issue of child detention, The Independent reported how Israel is systematically arresting Palestinian children during the night, depriving them of sleep and food once in detention, and subjecting them to beatings and threats of violence, leaving many traumatised and prone to nightmares and bed-wetting.

Across the world in Chile and Honduras, university and secondary school demonstrators protesting against government plans to privatise much of the education system have also been met with State repression. Security forces have used tear gas and water canons to disperse protesters, detaining many of them. One teenage student died in Santiago, Chile’s capital, after being shot by a police officer, while more than 1,200 have been detained over the past three months. And in Honduras, a 17-year-old was shot dead during a sit-in at his local school. 

Also check out CRIN’s Forms of Violence page on **State violence**. 

Gender violence

In Libya, a father killed his three teenage daughters in a “killing in the name of honour” by slitting their throats after they were raped by men loyal to Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) have said in a new report.

Also check out CRIN’s Forms of Violence pages on **Honour killings**.

Meanwhile in the Horn of Africa, aid workers have warned that female refugees fleeing the region’s drought are increasingly vulnerable to sexual violence either on their way to the camps or once inside them. On arrival, many settle in the outskirts of the camps, where security is never guaranteed, waiting to be registered as refugees. Some have reported being gang raped while searching for firewood. 

Women and girls living in post-earthquake makeshift camps in Haiti also face the threat of rape. In the first 150 days after the January 2010 earthquake struck, killing over 230,000 people, more than 250 women and girls had reported being raped. The lack of police presence and willingness to help has aggravated the problem, with victims saying they were told by officers that nothing can be done even though they had not initiated any investigation. Scant sanitary facilities have also been cited as a problem, as a number of victims of rape have reported being attacked while on their way to or back from the communal toilet. 

Also check out CRIN’s Forms of Violence pages on **Physical abuse**.

But there is good news from Kenya, where female genital mutilation (FGM) is now banned by law! The new legislation also prohibits derogatory remarks about women and girls who have not undergone FGM. Yet while outlawing the practice is a massive step forward, activists say that legislation alone will fail to stop the practice unless the ban is accompanied by continuous community awareness raising and education programmes on the health risks of this deep-rooted cultural practice. In one ethnic community in Kenya, there is an FGM prevalence of 96 per cent.

Also check out CRIN’s Forms of Violence pages **Harmful traditional practices**. 

Using children as suicide bombers

In the past month we have also come across reports of children being used as suicide bombers in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the latest case, the militant Islamic group Al-Qaeda is thought to be behind a suicide bombing in a crowded mosque in the Khyber tribal region of Pakistan, which killed 50 people and injured more than 100, and which was allegedly carried out by a teenage boy. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy strongly condemned the act, saying “[t]hose who use girls and boys’ bodies as bombs are the worst victimisers of children... A more despicable act is hard to fathom.”

In another incident back in June, a nine-year-old schoolgirl was allegedly kidnapped by militants and forced to wear a suicide vest packed with nine kilograms of explosives.

And at the end of August in Afghanistan, residents of Baharak district in northeastern Badakhshan province captured a 16-year-old boy wearing a suicide vest as he was on his way to blow up a local mosque.  The Taliban continues to deny using children as suicide bombers or for other military purposes, but according to Human Rights Watch the above case proves the Taliban leader Mullah Omar’s pledges to respect the laws of war, publishing a code of conduct, and renew a commitment to protect children and civilians are meaningless. 

Pakistani authorities also believe the Taliban is behind an attack on a school bus this week, which left five children dead from bullet wounds in the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar. 

Corporal punishment  

In Botswana, a 15-year-old schoolboy died from injuries caused by flogging - a sentence handed down by a village elder at the traditional court, the Kgotla, for allegedly slapping a schoolmate. Although the incident ended up at the police station, officers referred the matter to the local Kgotla where the boy was sentenced to receive four strokes on his bare back. Four days after being flogged, he complained of pains in his waist and back. His condition deteriorated as he began vomiting blood. Doctors who treated him in hospital said that the strokes may have affected his kidneys. The boy eventually died.

In 2008, Botswana was examined under the Universal Periodic Review, where it received recommendations to prohibit all corporal punishment of children. Yet the Government rejected the recommendations, leaving corporal punishment of children and adolescents lawful in the home, schools and the penal system. 

Also check out CRIN’s Forms of Violence page on **Physical punishment**. 

In the United Kingdom, teachers will no longer be required to record instances when they use physical force against students, as part of a wider campaign to reverse the “erosion of adult authority”, education secretary Michael Gove has said. "If any parent now hears a school say, 'sorry, we can't physically touch the students', then that school is wrong. Plain wrong. The rules of the game have changed," Gove asserted. 

In response, the Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE) released a statement in which it condemns Gove's proposal, saying that recording instances of physical restraint in schools "is the only means of discovering patterns in the use of, and reasons for, physical restraint; the backgrounds and circumstances of children being restrained; and whether particular teachers are disproportionately using physical restraint." Likewise, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) said monitoring incidents of force is key to "ensuring that [it] is used lawfully and as a method of last resort."

Bullying

In Chile, the organisation OPCIÓN has published a fact-sheet on bullying in schools in Santiago, which reveals that bullying and harassment occur mostly inside the classroom and online on social networks. Download it here (in Spanish). 

Bullying off school grounds is now covered by the new anti-bullying law of the state of New Jersey in the United States – claimed to be the toughest in the country – which came into effect on 1 September. It requires schools to fully track reports of harassment, intimidation and bullying within one day of them being reported, and for all staff members to receive training on how to deal with instances of bullying, while anti-bullying specialists will be appointed to each school.

Yet the battle against homophobic bullying in the US state of Minnesota continues, as six students have brought a lawsuit against school district officials in the conservative Anoka-Hennepin area for failing to stop relentless anti-gay harassment. Eight students have committed suicide in the past two years in the school district, four of whom are known to have struggled with homophobic bullying.

Also check out CRIN’s Forms of Violence page on **Bullying**. 

Abuse

In the United Kingdom, the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) has launched a report on the prevalence of child abuse in the UK in school, home, and community settings, which reveals that significant minorities of children are experiencing severe maltreatment that is associated with poor emotional wellbeing, self-harm, suicidal ideation and delinquent behaviour.

And in Spain, a study conducted by the Centre for Legal Studies (CEJFE) in Catalonia has proved wrong the assumption in the judicial sphere that the testimonies of child victims of sexual abuse and maltreatment are unreliable because they have a tendency to exaggerate. As part of the study, 135 nursery school children were interviewed to test the theory that children between the ages of three and six are capable of recounting traumatic experiences in great detail. It found that the margin of error was only five per cent, and concludes that even if children’s testimonies do contain flaws, they should never be disregarded in courts. 

Also check out CRIN’s Forms of Violence pages on **Physical abuse**. 

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UPCOMING EVENTS 

Europe: 12^th ISPCAN Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect – Challenging Social Responsibilities
Dates: 18 – 21 September 2011 
Organiser: International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN)
Location: Tampere, Finland
More details here. 

Asia Pacific: 9^th ISPCAN Regional Conference on Child Abuse and Neglect 
Dates: 6 – 9 October 2011 
Organiser: International Society for Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect and the Indian Child Abuse & Neglect & Child Labour Group
Location: New Delhi, India 
More details here. 

Call for Proposals: Reducing the prevalence of violence against children
Submission deadline: 7 October 2011 
Organiser: Children and Violence Education Challenge Fund
More details here. 

Asia Pacific: ‘Eradicate Early and Forced Marriages’: The 2011 International Congress for the World Campaign
Dates: 26 – 28 October 2011 
Organiser: Yellitaare, the University of Southern California, and the UCLA Women’s Health & Empowerment Center 
Location: University of Southern California, USA  
More details here. 

Global: Session 47 of the UN Committee Against Torture 
Dates: 31 October – 25 November 2011 
Organiser: UN Committee Against Torture  
Location: Geneva, Switzerland  
More details here. 

Europe: Witchcraft Branding, Spirit Possession and Safeguarding African Children 
Dates: 8 – 9 November 2011 
Organiser: AFRUCA – Africans United Against Child Abuse
Location: London, United Kingdom 
More details here. 

Europe: The 3^rd Annual International Symposium on Preventing Human Trafficking  
Dates: 24 November 2011 
Organiser: Public Policy Exchange 
Location: Brussels, Belgium  
More details here. 

THE LAST WORD

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