CRINMAIL 75
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NEWS AND REPORT ROUND-UP
Inhuman sentencing in the spotlight
This week marked the World Day against the Death Penalty on 10 October. While a number of States continue to sentence offenders to death – and in a handful of others children are subject to the same form of punishment – there has been some progress in 2013. Bolivia, Guinea-Bissau and Latvia are the latest States to have acceded to or ratified the second Optional Protocol to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights aiming at the abolition of the death penalty (see the current ratifications list here), while other countries ratified regional mechanisms to the same effect.
Specifically in relation to children, CRIN, together with other partners, has been campaigning for an end to the sentencing of children to inhuman forms of punishment, including the death penalty. According to our research, child offenders can be lawfully sentenced to death in at least seven States by lethal injection, hanging, shooting or stoning. Many more still have the death penalty on their statutes. But as long as the sentence remains a possibility in the statutes of a country, children run the risk of being executed should a situation in a given country change.
Five States around the world are known to have executed child offenders in the past five years: Iran, Sudan, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and most recently in the Gaza Strip in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Last week Hamas authorities in the Gaza Stip executed a young man who had been convicted of two killings, including one allegedly committed when he was 14 years old. Hani Abu Aliyan, 28, was hanged last Wednesday in a security compound. Abu Aliyan’s lawyer said his client had confessed to the killing he was accused of committing as a teenager following abuse and torture during interrogation. Full story.
The case has drawn heavy criticism of Gaza’s justice system. Critics report how prisoners have been executed in Gaza despite unfair trials and a clear lack of due process, including the use of torture to extract confessions.
Corporal punishment recognised as assault
A number of European States have been responding to complaints against them alleging that their respective laws fail to protect children from violence because for not fully banning corporal punishment. The complaints – against Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Slovenia, Italy, Ireland and France – were submitted under the collective complaints procedure by the Association for the Protection of All Children (APPROACH), which claimed that the States were not complying with their obligations under the European Social Charter, which requires Member States to protect children and young people from violence. The European Committee on Social Rights registered the complaints on 4 February; they were declared admissible on 2 July 2013.
Since the announcement of the complaints, several of the countries have responded with their intentions on the matter. In mid-July Cyprus amended its legislation to repealed a provision in its Children’s Law (1954) that allowed adults “to administer punishment” on children, and replaced it with new laws explicitly prohibiting corporal punishment. Previously in May 2013, France accepted the recommendations to prohibit corporal punishment of children in all settings made during the UN Universal Periodic Review. And in June 2013, Slovenia confirmed to the Committee on the Rights of the Child that a new Family Code yet to be adopted includes a full prohibition of corporal punishment. Ireland, on the other hand, said in September that it has no plans to outlaw corporal punishment of children in the home.
Elsewhere in the world, Honduras recently followed in the footsteps of the more progressive countries by becoming the 34th State in the world, and the fourth in Latin America, to fully ban all corporal punishment of children in all settings, including the home. Previously, parents were allowed “to reprimand and adequately and moderately correct their children”. But it is now forbidden for adults “to use physical punishment or any type of humiliating, degrading, cruel or inhuman treatment as a form of correction or discipline of children and adolescents.” Full story.
Meanwhile the US-based anti-corporal punishment organisation, StopSpanking.org, has produced a short video which explores the long-term effects of corporal punishment. By looking at the “fine line” that many parents draw between spanking and physical abuse, the video seeks to answer the question of whether being spanked as children makes us more inclined to be violent ourselves? To this end, the producers interviewed juvenile offenders, neuroscientists specialising in early brain development, and experts in the field of child abuse. View the short video here.
Regional body commits to ending all genital mutilation
At the start of the month, the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly voted to include “children’s right to physical integrity” within the body’s human rights standards, amid growing concern over violations in this area. Examples include circumcision of young boys for religious - not medical - reasons, surgery to “normalise” the genetalia of intersex children, and the coercion of children to get tattoos, piercings or plastic surgery. Supporters of these practices often present them as beneficial to children, despite clear evidence to the contrary. An overwhelming majority vote approved a resolution which among other features recommends that governments restrict certain procedures until a child is old enough to consent to them or refuse consent. Full story.
A few days prior, children’s ombudspersons from five Nordic countries agreed at a meeting in Oslo that they will work with their respective governments to restrict male circumcision so that it is no longer performed on non-consenting, underage boys for non-medical reasons. Accordingly, the children’s ombudspersons from Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Iceland, and the children's spokesperson from Greenland, as well as representatives of associations of Nordic paediatricians and paediatric surgeons, all signed a resolution entitled ‘Let boys decide for themselves whether or not they want to be circumcised’. Read the resolution here.
New study looks at male violence against women
This week also marked the second UN International Day of the Girl on 11th October, which among other things aims to raise awareness of the persistent violations to their rights around the world and the practices that prevent them from achieving their full potential.
One of the most persistent problems facing girls and women around the world is gender violence, including sexual violence. A new joint study by UN bodies has recently looked at the prevalence of and reasons for sexual violence committed by men across Asia-Pacific. The study interviewed some 10,000 men and 3,100 women in Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and Papua New Guinea (PNG) between 2010-2013, with nearly one in four male respondents admitting to having raped a woman or girl. The majority of male respondents who had perpetrated rape say they did face any legal consequences. Among the motives behind the violence, 73 per cent of male respondents said they felt a sense of sexual entitlement - the belief that men have a right to sex with women regardless of consent. Fifty-three per cent said they did it for fun.
In terms of how to combat the problem, Rachel Jewkes of South Africa’s Medical Research Council and researcher in the UN study said that “[rape] prevention strategies need to show increased focus on the structural and social risk factors for rape. We now need to move towards a culture of preventing the perpetration of rape from ever occurring, rather than relying on prevention through responses.” Download the study here.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Report launch: "Creating a Non-Violent Juvenile Justice System"
Organisation: International NGO Council on Violence against Children et al.
Date: 16 October 2013
Location: New York City, United States
More details here.
Sexual violence: Evidence into action
Organisation: Sexual Violence Research Initiative
Date: 14-17 October 2013
Location: Bangkok, Thailand
More details here.
Ratification: "UP - Universally Promoting child rights" campaign
Organisation: Child Rights Connect (formerly the NGO Group for the CRC)
Date: 21 October - 21 November 2013
Location: N/A
More details here.
Africa: 54th Session of the African Commission
Organisation: African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights
Date: 22 October - 5 November 2013
Location: Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
More details here.
Violence: 19 Days of Activism - Prevention abuse and violence against children and youth
Organisation: Women's World Summit Foundation
Date: 1-19 November 2013
Location: N/A
More details here.
Bodily integrity: Whole bodies, whole selves - Activating social change
Organisation: Genital Autonomy et al.
Abstract submission deadline: 15 December 2013
Event date: 24-27 July 2014
Location: Colorado, United States
More details here.
The Last Word
'Does spanking teach kids a lesson? By all means: It teaches them to hit people who are weaker than they are to get their way. It teaches them that love is inextricably bound up with violence. It teaches them that acts of aggression are acceptable as long as they’re called "discipline.” If we’re serious about protecting kids from violence, we have to help the adults in their lives understand how - and why - to move past corporal punishment -- in fact, past a rewards-and-punishment approach to parenting.'
-- Alfie Kohn (www.alfiekohn.org), author of Unconditional Parenting and other books"
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