CRINmail 1494

In this issue:

LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Armed conflict

Afghanistan’s security forces are increasingly using schools as bases during military operations in Taliban held areas, putting children at risk and depriving thousands of children of their education according to Human Rights Watch. The report, based on interviews with school principals, teachers, administrators and families affected by the conflict, found that schools were often used as they were the only reinforced concrete buildings in some villages. The research found that the militarisation of schools has been particularly harmful for girls, as parents have been reluctant to send their daughters to schools where soldiers are present, for risk of attack. “Afghan children’s education is at risk not just from the Taliban, but also from government forces that occupy their schools,” said Patricia Gossman, senior Afghanistan researcher at HRW. “Children are being put in harm’s way by the very Afghan forces mandated to protect them.”

Children in South Sudan are in danger of being forced to become soldiers as civil war threatens to break out in the country, according to UNICEF. The organisation reported last week that more than 650 children have been recruited since the start of the year and as many as 16,000 since the end of 2013. UNICEF’s deputy executive director, Justin Forsyth, warned that “at this precarious stage in South Sudan’s short history, UNICEF fears a further spike in child recruitment could be imminent”. Violence has continued in the country despite a peace deal signed in August 2015, and figures suggest that as many as one in five people in the country have fled their homes. In July alone, 4,000 people a day fled the country for Uganda, as many as 90 percent of whom were women and children.

Ban Ki Moon is due to warn Saudi Arabia that the coalition it leads will be relisted as a group that inflicts extreme suffering on children in conflict zones unless bombing of schools and hospitals in Yemen is halted. The official warning is set to come after a coalition airstrike on a school in Yemen’s Sa’ada province killed 10 children and wounded  28 others. The coalition was originally included in the UN Secretary-General’s “list of shame” earlier this year, but was later removed, reportedly after threats from the Kingdom and its allies to withdraw hundreds of millions of dollars in assistance to the United Nations. Meanwhile, the exiled government of Yemen has announced plans to cut off the country’s central bank from the outside world, in a move aimed at strangling the resources of Houthi rebels. If the plan goes ahead the rebels will struggle to pay soldiers from the national army, who have so far supported them in the country’s civil war, but will also lose cash for teachers and doctors, while the average citizen will find it increasingly difficult to obtain food and medicine as both are almost entirely imported.
 

Civil and political rights

A UN human rights expert has warned that the trial of Amos Yee in Singapore is a sign of increased criminalisation of expression in the country. Yee, a 17-year-old blogger who was sentenced to four weeks in prison last year for posting a video insulting the country’s first prime minister, Lee Kuan Yew, returned to court this week. This week Yee confessed to several of the charges against him, but is contesting three more. If convicted, Yee could face up to three years in prison. The UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of expression, David Kaye, drew attention to Yee’s age and stressed the lawfulness of his expressions under international human rights law, emphasising that the widening crackdown on controversial expression and political dissent in Singapore is a breach of the obligation to respect, protect and promote freedom of expression.

Concerns over internet freedom have heightened after Mali became the latest country to impose a social media blackout last week. Supporters of detained radio host Mohamed Bathily made use of social media to mobilise in protest but lost access to the websites soon after images of violent clashes and police brutality began to circulate online. The government officially denied any shutdown and suggested that the disruptions were due to technical problems. As social media is fast becoming the primary means of political mobilisation, there is a growing tendency among governments to block access during protests and elections. Whatsapp users in Gambia also reported disruption to the service last week, while citizens in Zambia experienced internet outages following demonstrations against the results of the recent presidential election, narrowly won by incumbent president Edgar Lungu.

Meanwhile, in Zimbabwe, where large-scale protests against the government have persisted in spite of social media blackouts, thousands of women took to the streets of Bulawayo to demand free education for their children. The protests, organised by Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) followed reports from parent associations that thousands of children have been thrown out of school because they cannot afford tuition fees. With an estimated unemployment rate of 90 percent, Zimbabwe has recently seen almost weekly protests against economic hardship and government repression as pressure mounts against President Robert Mugabe. The WOZA demonstrators continued their protest on Friday in Harare where they marched past riot police to hand their petition to the Ministry of Education.  At the same time, pressure group Tajamuka held a demonstration outside the offices of UNICEF in response to a recent statement by the organisation criticising the involvement of children in protests. UNICEF denounced the presence of the children of missing activist Itai Dzamara in a recent protest against his abduction by the state, and highlighted that children should not be used to advance a particular political cause. The demonstrators criticised UNICEF for being “timid and partisan” on this issue, noting its silence on the regular participation of children in demonstrations and rallies for Zanu PF, the ruling party of Zimbabwe.
 

Detention and juvenile justice

A nationwide class-action lawsuit is challenging the failure of the United States’ federal government to provide legal representation for children involved in deportation hearings. Thousands of children fleeing violence and persecution in Central America have been hauled before these courts, with petitioners from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) claiming that as many as 44 percent of roughly 23,000 children summoned by immigration courts had no lawyer to represent them, with 86 percent of these children subsequently being deported. Stephen Kang, a lawyer for the ACLU, explained that all of these children would have come up against a federal prosecutor in an adversarial court hearing with “life-or-death consequences” for those involved. The class-action, accepted by the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, covers all under-18s involved in immigration proceedings in the Ninth Circuit on or after 24 June of this year who lack and cannot afford legal representation, and are potentially eligible for asylum or a claim to US citizenship.

The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan E. Méndez, has called on Brazilian legislators to reject a measure that would lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16. A constitutional amendment is currently being considered by members of the country’s senate which would criminalise children as young as 16 for “heinous crimes”, despite reports of overcrowding already plaguing the country’s juvenile detention system. Méndez called on the lawmakers to protect the human rights of children in conflict with the law, adding that detention of children is inextricably linked with their ill-treatment as they are at increased risk of suffering “violence, abuses, and acts of torture when deprived of their liberty”. The UN expert added that prosecuting children would violate Brazil’s obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, even if those convicted would serve part or all of their sentences at facilities separate from adults.

The UN Refugee Agency has reported a drop in the total number of refugee children detained in 12 countries, but also highlighted that conditions in many countries still need vast improvement. Releasing two reports on immigration detention, the UN’s refugee body noted this week that many asylum seekers are still penalised for irregular entry and may be detained with people suspected or convicted of a crime. Volker Türk, Assistant High Commissioner for Protection at the UN Refugee Agency, added that officials in most of the countries the reports focus on rarely, if ever, consider alternatives to detaining children, with four of the countries in the report yet to set a maximum time limit on immigration detention. Despite the problems still present the reports noted the introduction of more protective laws and policies to limit child detention, prioritized processing of the asylum claims of children, improved access to age appropriate information and increased attention to the process of appointing qualified guardians.
 

Violence

A suspected suicide attack which targeted a wedding in Turkey has left at least 22 children aged under 14 dead, out of a total of 54 confirmed killed. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was quick to condemn the attack on Saturday night, initially claiming that it was carried out by a child aged between 12 and 14, but the country’s Prime Minister later admitted that the identity of the attacker was not yet known. The bombing targeted a Kurdish wedding party in the city of Gaziantep after the main ceremony and is the deadliest attack to hit the country this year. The guests were at a traditional henna night party, mostly attended by women and children when a bomb was detonated amongst a group of people dancing. While no group has claimed responsibility for the attack, Turkey has blamed the so-called Islamic State, and vowed to wipe the militants from its borders as retaliation for the bombing.

Reports suggest that child refugees fleeing conflict in Mali could be at risk of being attacked, recruited into armed groups or married to older men upon reaching camps in Mauritania. A recent surge in the number of arrivals to one camp highlighted the issues, as support for displaced people fleeing violence is stretched thinner and thinner. Within Mbera, a refugee camp just 50km from the Malian border, just 5,000 of the 14,000 school-age residents attend the camp’s primary schools, with far lower rates of enrolment recorded in the camp’s secondary schools. Without secondary education and training it is believed that many children will be pressured to either join armed groups, routinely operating just 70km away from the camp, or will be forced into marriage — as the camp has already seen repeatedly.

A member of the Russian parliament has called for domestic violence to be decriminalised, claiming that people should not be given prison time for hitting their partner or children. Yelena Mizulina, notorious for introducing a law banning so-called gay propaganda, introduced a new bill in July proposing the decriminalisation of violence within families, saying that incidents of domestic violence should be treated as administrative offences. The proposal is a reaction to a recently signed amendment to the criminal code, which now treats violence within the family as a criminal act on a par with other serious crime. The call for domestic violence to be decriminalised is a troubling one, particularly in light of Russian government statistics showing that 36,000 women are assaulted by their partners every day and that 26,000 reports of children being beaten are made to police every year. Violence against women and girls also made the headlines in Russia recently, after a preacher in Dagestan called for all women to undergo female genital mutilation to reduce sexual ‘depravity’, provoking outrage from the world at large and gathering scant support from other ultra-conservative religious leaders.

UPCOMING EVENTS

Foster care: International Foster Care 2016 European Conference
Organisation: International Foster Care Organisation
Dates: 1-4 September 2016
Location: Sheffield, UK

Advertising: Child rights based tools for protecting kids from alcohol marketing
Organisation: IOGT International
Dates: 2 September 2016
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia

Participation: Young Citizens & Society: Fostering Civic Participation
Organisation: University of Strathclyde
Dates: 2-3 September 2016
Location: Glasgow, Scotland

Changing Global Perceptions: Child Protection & Bodily Integrity
Organisation: Genital Autonomy
Dates: 14-16 September 2016
Location: Keele, UK

Education: Achieving education for all and eliminating child labour
Organisation: The International Training Centre of the ILO
Dates: 25-30 September 2016
Location: Turin, Italy

Alternative care: International alternative care conference
Organisation: University of Geneva and Institut de droits l’enfant
Event dates: 3-5 October 2016
Location: Geneva, Switzerland

Family separation: Exploring the Causes and Consequences of Children Separated From Their Families Across International Borders
Organisation: International Social Service
Event date: 13 October 2016
Location: Maryland, US

Access to justice: National Conference on Child Wellbeing
Organisation: The President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society
Dates: 21-22 October 2016
Location: Valletta, Malta

Education: Master of Advanced Studies in Children's Rights
Application deadline: 1 November 2016
Dates: February 2017 – November 2018
Location: Geneva, Switzerland

Education in Emergencies
Organisation: HREA
Dates: 2 November-13 December 2016
Location: online (e-learning course)

Children in War and Armed Conflicts
Organisation: HREA
Dates: 2 November-13 December 2016
Location: online (e-learning course)

Right to work: Eliminating child labour and promoting decent work in agriculture
Organisation: The International Training Centre of the ILO (ITCILO)
Dates: 14-18 November 2016
Location: Turin, Italy

Child labour: Developing skills and livelihood training programmes for older children
Organisation: ITCILO
Dates: 21-25 November 2016
Location: Turin, Italy

Education: International Children’s Rights
Application deadline: 1 April 2017 (non-EU) / 15 June 2017 (EU students)
Dates: September 2017 - Summer 2018
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
 

EMPLOYMENT

Orchid Project: Chief Operating Officer
Application deadline: Rolling
Location: London, United Kingdom

Center for Reproductive Rights: Global Advocacy Adviser
Application deadline: Rolling
Location: Geneva, Switzerland

Plan International: Content and Learning Specialist
Application deadline: 29 August 2016
Location: London, UK

Consortium for Street Children: CEO
Application deadline: 4 September 2016
Location: London, United Kingdom

European Roma Rights Centre: Communications Intern or Trainee
Application deadline: 7 September 2016
Location: Budapest, Hungary

Back to top

THE LAST WORD

Back to top