6 December 2006 - Rights CRINMAIL 30
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- Violence against Children: UN adopts Resolution on the rights of the child [news]
- Rights Based Development and Humanitarian Action in Conflict Situations [event and call for speakers]
- Human Rights Council: Discussion on Universal Periodic Review Mechanism [news]
- UK: Government launches children's rights survey [call for information]
- Child rights courses in the Middle East and North Africa [training]
- Upcoming human rights courses [training]
- Vacancy: ChildHope seeks to appoint two new Trustees
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Rights CRINMAIL is a component of a project of the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN). It is published monthly with the purpose of informing and building the community of practitioners in rights-based programming. Your submissions are welcome. To contribute, email us at[email protected].
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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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Violence against Children: UN adopts Resolution on the rights of the child [news]
[23 November 2006] - The United Nations General Assembly voted on a Resolution in November on the Rights of the Child which includes recommendations on the outcome of the Secretary-General's Study on Violence Against Children that was presented to the GA in October 2006.
Every year, the General Assembly hears updates on the situation of children’s rights and adopts an omnibus Resolution based on these updates. This year, the GA heard reports from the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, on the follow-up to the Special Session on Children, and on the Status of the Convention on the Rights of the Child from the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.
As Professor Pinheiro, the Independent Expert leading the Secretary-General’s Study on Violence against Children, presented his final report to this year’s session of the GA, a section of the Resolution is dedicated to violence against children. Even though the Resolution does not specifically reflect all of Pinheiro’s recommendations, the GA says it ‘welcomes the Independent Expert’s Study and takes fully into account its recommendations’.
Save the Children said they also welcomed the Independent Expert's report and would "continue their global fight against violence and lobby governments and the international community to urgently ban all forms of violence against children, including sexual abuse and exploitation, corporal punishment and all other forms of degrading punishment, wherever they occur.”
Further on, the GA commends the Independent Expert on the ‘unprecedented level and quality of participation by children’. Roberta Cecchetti who spoke on behalf of the NGO Group Subgroup on Children and Violence, emphasised Professor Pinheiro’s strong leadership in the process and said that “the content of the Study would not be the same if that level and quality of participation had not been encouraged, sustained and defended.”
Finally, she said “we encourage all States to take stock of such an experience and create space for the participation of girls and boys in designing and implementing policies to prevent and respond to violence against children.”
Even though the Study Report recommends the appointment of a Special Representative to the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Violence against Children, the GA does not make any decisions on this issue, but invites Professor Pinheiro to ‘give support to the first year of effective follow-up to its recommendations […] to submit to the General Assembly at its sixty-second session a report on progress made in the initial phase of the follow-up and to anticipate the necessary strategy for follow-up to the implementation of the study’.
Both the NGO Group Subgroup on Children and Violence, and the NGO Advisory Panel to the Study have been campaigning for such an advocate to be appointed by the GA, referring to the establishment of the SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict as an outcome of Graça Machel’s report. Roberta Cecchetti said “we as NGOs, are ready to continue to support the Independent Expert and all the stakeholders in the implementation of the recommendations."
Save the Children said they “will also continue to advocate for the appointment of a Special Representative of the UN Secretary General on the Elimination of Violence against Children, with the mandate and resources required to provide leadership and oversight of the issue.”
The Resolution received 176 votes in favour, with no abstentions. Only the United States voted against the Resolution, for a number of reasons, including the fact that they are not a party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Finally, the General Assembly requested that next year’s resolution should focus on violence against children. This year’s Resolution had focused on children living in poverty who had no access to nutrition or sanitation facilities.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11486&flag=news
Further information:
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Rights Based Development and Humanitarian Action in Conflict Situations [event and call for speakers]
Date: 8 - 9 February 2007
Location: London, UK
A conference on rights based development and humanitarian action in conflict situations, organised by the Inter-Agency Group on Rights Based Approaches (IAG), will be held in February in London. The IAG is calling for speakers from civil society organisations or academic institutions working in closed political environments, conflict contexts and fragile States to present at the conference.
Potential speakers who would like to make a presentation are asked to submit a brief abstract of their presentations to the IAG - a loose network of UK based NGOs concerned with integrating human rights into development and humanitarian practice. The steering committee will use these abstracts to select speakers and organise the content of the event around three key themes: 1) theories/ principles, 2) programme work; and, 3) policy work.
The purpose of this exploratory conference is to learn, challenge thinking and improve the impact of rights based programme and policy work in conflict situations through the creation of space for issue-raising, debate and analysis of emerging challenges, tensions and questions as well as areas of complementarity.
The conference will introduce innovative theories, policies and practices and facilitate debate from the various perspectives of development, humanitarian, human rights and peace and security academics and practitioners. The participation of speakers from developing countries is prioritised to ensure that participants learn from the experiences of practitioners and academics working in conflict contexts. A concrete output will be a publicationwhich captures the challenges and tensions but also clarifies areas of complementarily between human rights and conflict prevention. It is hoped that this open forum will push participants to look more deeply and critically at their own work and ultimately enable them to respond more effectively in the future.
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11714
Abstracts should be submitted by 13 December 2006 to:
Magdalene Lagu
Rights Advisor
CARE International UK
Email: [email protected]
Further information
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Human Rights Council: Discussion on Universal Periodic Review Mechanism [news]
This week, a discussion was held during the third session of the Human Rights Council about how the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) mechanism should work in practice. The aim of the UPR, which was established by General Assembly Resolution 60/251 of 15 March 2006, is to review how States, who are members of the Human Rights Council, are fulfilling their human rights commitments and obligations during their term of membership.
The review will be based on dialogue with the country concerned and will take into account its capacity-building needs. Since its first session in June 2006, the Council has been holding discussions and consultations including NGOs to decide on how the UPR will work.
In last month’s discussion of the progress of the working group, which was established to develop the modalities of the UPR, delegations from different countries, including non-Council members and NGOs, gave their viewpoints. Uruguay emphasised the importance of taking a rights-based approach review process that incorporated a victims-based approach whilst taking into consideration gender and children's rights-based approaches.
Full comments from other delegations
Further information
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UK: Government launches children's rights survey [call for information]
The UK Government has launched an online children's rights survey to find out the views and experiences of children and young people (under 18 year-olds) in England.
This is the first time the Government has asked children and young people about the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The results will be included in the UK Government's report next year to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
The English coalition of child rights organisations, CRAE (Children's Rights Alliance for England) want children and young people everywhere to get involved. You could organise promotional events at school, in your youth club or your participation project. Make sure your friends and brothers and sisters get to hear about it. There are 11 million under 18s in England - CRAE want thousands to take part.
This survey is your chance to tell the Government what you think about children's rights in England.
It is part of a project to involve children and young people in saying how well they think the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is working in England. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child gives children and young people many rights. The United Nations will soon be checking to see how these rights are respected across the UK.
If you are aged under 18 and live in England, CRAE really want to hear from you. You do not have to give your name and no one will know what you have said.
When CRAE have heard from children and young people all over England, they will write a report about your views and experiences.
The survey should take between 10 and 30 minutes to fill in and your views are very important.
Deadline: 31 January 2007
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11231&flag=news
For more information, contact:
Children's Rights Alliance for England (CRAE)
94 White Lion Street, London N1 9PF, UK
Tel: +44 20 7278 8222
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.crae.org.uk
Further information
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Recommendations issued by the Committee to the UK government at the last session in 2002
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Child rights courses in the Middle East and North Africa [training]
Date: 1 January - 31 December 2007
Location: Lebanon, Tunisia
This Master's degree in Child Rights is organised by and will be held at: the Arab Institute for Human Rights, the School of Law at the University of Lebanon, and the School of Legal, Political and Social Sciences at 7 Novembre University in Carthage, Tunisia. The course will be divided into the following eight modules:
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International tools for child rights and the obligations of State parties
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General principles of child rights
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Freedoms and civil rights for the child
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Family environment and alternative care, including international adoption
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Health and welfare rights, including the health and development of teenagers
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Education and cultural rights, including the objectives of education
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Special protection measures, including protection of children in conflict with the law
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Information and communications technology in the field of child rights
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=11534
For more information, contact:
Arab Institute for Human Rights
14, Rue Al Jahedh, Menzah, 1004 Tunis, Tunisia
Tel: + 216 71 767 003 ; Fax: + 216 71 750 911
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.aihr.org.tn
Date: To be decided
Location: Khartoum, Sudan
This course in children's rights, which will be held in Arabic, gives an introduction to children's rights within international human rights law and humanitarian law. The course will take place over 42 hours. The dates of the course will be decided when applications are received.
For a full outline of the course, visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=11535
For more information, contact:
Khartoum International Centre for Human Rights
Tel: + 249 11 799240; Fax: +249 11 799241
Email: [email protected] or [email protected]
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Upcoming human rights courses [training]
Human Rights Education Associates (HREA) have announced the following distance learning human rights courses for 2007:
Human Rights Litigation
Date: 14 February - 7 May 2007
This distance learning course provides participants with knowledge of the concept, types, venues and strategies of human rights litigation. It focuses on strategic litigation and legal aid both internationally and domestically, and explores a variety of strategies: issue or group oriented litigation, community based services, legal clinics, NGO or law firm resourced actions and others. Participants are familiarised with court ordered structural relief, as well as with conventional victim-centred legal remedies.
Deadline for applications: 1 January 2007
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11217&flag=event
Introduction to the Inter-American System of Human Rights of Protection and Promotion
Date: 26 March - 3 June 2007
This distance learning course provides participants with practical guidance on how to protect human rights through the Inter-American human rights system, and specifically the institutions and treaties of the Organization of American States (OAS). Participants will be introduced to the main Inter-American human rights conventions and jurisprudence, primarily as developed through the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (Washington D.C.) and the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (San José, Costa Rica).
Deadline for applications: 1 January 2007
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11219&flag=event
Human Rights Monitoring
Date: 5 September - 27 November 2007
This distance learning course provides participants practical guidance on how to monitor human rights. Participants will be introduced to the doctrine and methodology of human rights monitoring, primarily as developed through the work of international organisations and NGOs, such as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Association for the Prevention of Torture (APT) and national human rights NGOs.
Deadline for applications: 1 June 2007
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11221&flag=event
Introduction to Human Rights Education
Date: 12 September - 4 December 2007
The course will introduce the international field of human rights education, including presentations of programming, teaching and learning resources, and related theory. The course is intended for educators and trainers working in both the formal and nonformal sectors. Participants will be assisted in the development of a curriculum, training, or plan to use these skills to further their organisation's advocacy efforts. Participants might be expected to apply these skills within formal education settings, for staff development within their own organisations, and for outreach and advocacy.
Deadline for applications: 1 June 2007
Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11222&flag=event
For more information on all these courses, contact:
HREA Distance Learning Programme
PO Box 382396, Cambridge, MA 02238-2396 USA
Email: [email protected]
Website: www.hrea.org
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Vacancy: ChildHope seeks to appoint two new Trustees
ChildHope's Board is looking to appoint two new Trustees. Expertise is needed in, (a) child poverty, child participation, and child rights-based approaches, or (b) international law, especially human/child rights.
The Board of Trustees meet quarterly for four-hour meetings, annually for a one-day meeting and most Trustees also attend sub-committee meetings at least twice a year. Expressions of interest are sought.
Deadline for applications: 15 December 2006
For more information, visit: http://www.childhope.org.uk/vacancies.php
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