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In this issue:
LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Armed conflict
A truce, recently agreed between parties to the conflict in Syria, has largely been observed despite allegations of sporadic fighting in some areas and reports that government forces are preventing UN aid reaching parts of Aleppo. The shaky truce comes amid allegations of serious human rights violations on both sides, with the regime and its allies accused of deploying cluster munitions and chemical weapons indiscriminately against people in rebel-held areas in recent months. Both chemical and cluster weapons have been documented as affecting children severely, as inhalation of the weaponised gases can have a greater effect on children’s smaller lungs, and because children often mistake submunitions from cluster bombs for toys or cans. The break in the five-year war has also coincided with the publication of the Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, a UN investigation into the human rights violations carried out during the conflict. The report notes the involvement of all groups in the violation of children’s rights during the conflict, documenting “ongoing, multiple and frequently untreated trauma” experienced by the country’s children and noting the use of airstrikes, forced recruitment of children and siege tactics to cut off even the most basic necessities to rebel-held areas.
Children in Yemen continue to be killed by Saudi Arabian airstrikes, with two separate incidents claiming the lives of at least six children this week. In the first attack a residential building north of the Yemeni capital Sana’a was struck, according residents. Four children were among the nine dead civilians, with reports suggesting that at least five other people were injured. The second attack targeted a water well near a village in the Sana'a governorate, killing 30 people, and wounding seven others. Two children were killed in the strikes, with the deaths of first responders suggesting that the attack on civilian infrastructure was sustained, and not merely a single error. The Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen claimed it does not target civilians, but previously attacked a hospital run by Doctors Without Borders, and has targeted other non-military targets since the conflict began in 2014.
A motorcycle bombing which targeted a school in southern Thailand has left three people dead, including a four-year-old girl. A bomb, reportedly hidden in a motorcycle’s fuel tank, was detonated across the street from the school’s entrance, injuring as many as ten other people as parents dropped their children off for the day. Conflict in the country’s south between the Muslim and Buddhist populations has been ongoing since 2004, but attracts little international coverage as attacks tend to be carried out on a relatively small scale. The conflict made headlines last month after bomb attacks in tourist hot spots killed four people and wounded dozens more. The most recent attack was condemned by UNICEF, which stated that schools should be places of education and safety for children.
UN news
In his opening statement to the Human Rights Council’s 33rd session, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, named and shamed the countries that continue to prevent independent investigations of human rights complaints. The Commissioner highlighted difficulties with verifying complaints from within Israel, Venezuela, Bahrain, the United States and others due to the obstructive practices of their governments. Highest on the list of offenders was Syria, with the Commissioner repeatedly mentioning the abominable human rights situation, and the government’s double standards on reporting abuses. He said: “Words cannot convey how profoundly I condemn this situation. The Government, which is responsible for some of the gravest violations on record in the history of this Council, has regularly sent notes verbales to my Office reporting abuses by armed groups. But it offers no possibility whatsoever for independent scrutiny”.
On Friday, the Security Council met for its fourth “straw poll” of candidates to be the next Secretary-General. This informal vote revealed that little has changed since the Council last met on the issue in August. António Guterres remains in the lead, followed by Miroslav Lajčák and Vuk Jeremić. Irina Bokova is the highest ranked woman in the polls, claiming fifth place. The Council’s decision to recommend a candidate as Secretary-General to the General Assembly requires nine members to vote in favour, with its permanent five members concurring, and not exercising their veto power. Two more straw polls are planned for 26 September and the first week of October. In early October, the Council is expected to hold a ballot distinguishing between the votes of permanent and non-permanent members of the Council. If so, the poll could reveal which candidates enjoy the support of the five permanent members, and which must overcome a veto to be the Council’s choice.
Diplomats and defence ministers from 80 countries met last week for a UN peacekeeping summit in London to discuss the future and validity of UN peacekeeping operations. Years of heavy scrutiny following allegations of sexual abuse in dozens of countries have damaged the institution's record, with little progress being made and several senior figures resigning or being sacked in recent years. UN special envoy Angelina Jolie made an appearance at the conference, urging States to double the number of female soldiers in peacekeeping, currently standing at just three percent of all forces. The UK’s defence minister, Michael Fallon, noted that there had been “some shocking examples of poor performance that we can all deplore” which risked losing the “hearts and minds” of the people that missions aimed to protect. Officials claimed the UN is taking sexual violence and other breaches of discipline increasingly seriously, and has set up a separate unit to investigate allegations of such crimes. However campaigners suggest such moves are smoke and mirrors. Paula Donovan, co-director of Aids-Free World, an NGO that runs a campaign on sexual abuse in the UN said that the problem was a conflict of interest, adding: “It’s allowed to police itself, and it’s allowed to act as judge and jury.”
Read more about this topic in CRIN’s guide to advocacy around peacekeeper sexual abuse.
Juvenile justice
The Court of Appeal of the Bahamas broke new ground this month, ruling that a judge must treat the welfare of children accused of criminal offences as a paramount consideration when deciding whether to detain them before trial. The Bahamas Child Protection Act requires courts to treat a child’s welfare as a paramount consideration in any matter relating to the child, provisions that the Court found applied to decisions on whether to release a child on bail. The boy involved in the case was accused of robbery and firearms offences and detained in an adult detention centre. During the boy’s arrest, police shot him three times and at the time of the court hearing about whether to grant bail, two bullets remained in his body. Children’s rights advocates hope the ruling will end the practice of routinely detaining children awaiting trial, requiring judges and magistrates to grant bail ahead of trials.
In New Zealand, 33 organisations have called on the State to raise the age at which children can be tried in adult courts and held in adult prisons. Currently, up to the age of 16, children accused of criminal offences are tried and sentenced by the Youth Court, but 17-year-olds fall outside the specialist provisions for “young offenders” and can be sentenced to harsher penalties. Speaking about the issue Children’s Commissioner, Andrew Becroft, said: “including 17-year-olds in the youth justice system would mean the great majority of moderate-to-minor offenders could be taken out of the criminal pipeline and dealt with in the community - collaboratively, positively. Almost certainly stopping a life of crime then and there”. A proposal to raise the age to 18 went before New Zealand’s cabinet in June this year but a decision is yet to be announced.
A 15-year-old boy has been arrested and questioned this week suspected of planning an imminent terror attack in France. According to two judicial sources who spoke to the Guardian on condition of anonymity, the boy has been under house arrest since April. Reports allege that the boy planned to carry out a knife attack, though police have refused to release further details of the allegations. The news emerged shortly after Prime Minister Manuel Valls reported that nearly 15,000 people in France were being tracked because they are suspected of being in the process of radicalisation, while 1,250 were under investigation.
Migrant refugee children
A new report on child refugees from UNICEF has claimed that there are as many as 50 million “uprooted” children worldwide, with 28 million of them displaced by conflict. The report details the risks of illness, injury and death that the children face, as well as documenting some of the xenophobia which has greeted them on arrival in ‘safe countries’. The report reveals that Turkey hosts the largest total number of recent refugees, and likely the largest number of child refugees in the world. Relative to its population, Lebanon hosts the largest number of refugees, while there is roughly one refugee for every 530 people in the United Kingdom and one for every 1,200 in the United States. The report calls for an end to the detention of children seeking asylum, for continued education for all migrant and refugee children and for action to address the underlying causes of large-scale movements of refugees and migrants.
The European Union has called on Greece to find shelter for 1,500 unaccompanied migrant and refugee children after Human Rights Watch condemned conditions in the areas already used to hold them as “deplorable”. Despite the fact that children should not be detained for immigration purposes, the rights group noted that some under-18s were locked up in police cells alongside adults for lack of space, increasing the risk of abuse and sexual violence and violating international and national laws requiring the separation of adults from children in detention. Greek government figures have recorded 3,500 unaccompanied minors in Greece, including more than 300 in closed reception centres and another 18 in police custody. Speaking to the Guardian the author of the report, Rebecca Riddel, explained: “Children are being detained for weeks and months, and are being made to live in filthy, bug-and-vermin-infested cells, sometimes without mattresses or access to showers”. The EU has since pledged an extra 116 million Euros to improve conditions in camps for migrants and refugees.
The UN Committee on the Rights of Migrant Workers and Members of their Families has expressed alarm about the plight of children, endorsing a set of principles to guide governments, NGOs and others in dealing with children on the move and those affected by migration. “Migrant children are, first and foremost, children, but the international community is failing them,” said Committee Chair José Brillantes. He added: “The Recommended Principles set out in simple terms that the best interests of a child should be a primary consideration in all actions concerning them. They also make it clear that detaining children because of their parents’ migration status constitutes a child rights violation”. Detention is never in the best interests of children, and the Committee, which supports the Global Initiative to End the Immigration Detention of Children, called upon States to end this practice. The Committee also called for migration policies to be human rights and child rights-based, and is working on a general comment with the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child on children in the context of international migration.
Drugs and violence
In the Philippines a 4-year-old girl has become the youngest casualty of President Duterte’s war on drugs. Since July Duterte has encouraged police and vigilantes to hunt down and kill those selling or using illegal drugs. The resulting wave of violence has now claimed around 3,526 lives, with 2,035 of those understood to be extrajudicial or vigilante killings. The fatal shooting of the 4-year-old Althea Fhem Barbon has prompted calls for an investigation of the police’s actions from the Senate and an official complaint has been filed with the country’s Commission on Human Rights by Althea’s mother. Days before Althea’s death gunmen also shot and killed a 5-year-old girl, Danica May Garcia, in an alleged attempt to murder her grandfather for his supposed involvement in the drug trade.
The mother of a girl in Cambodia has claimed that her daughter was below the age of criminal responsibility when she was jailed on drug charges. The child was reportedly arrested while she was 13, days away from her 14th birthday, but was charged by police under her 20-year-old sister’s name, and has so far spent eight months in jail. The child’s lawyers have presented documents detailing the girl’s age and are insisting that she was forced into acting as a drug mule by a powerful local drug dealer. Police have insisted that the girl is 20, despite her small stature, and remain committed to keeping her in jail. The country had no juvenile justice legislation in place until July this year when the King signed a new Bill into law, meaning that child and adult prisoners frequently share the same space.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
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
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
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
Violence: 19 Days of Activism For the Prevention of Violence Against Children and Youth
Organisation: Women's World Summit Foundation
Dates: 1-19 November 2016
Location: Global
Education: Master of Advanced Studies in Children’s Rights
Application deadline: 1 November 2016
Dates: February 2017 - November 2018
Location: Sion, 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)
Child care: Children's Rights in Alternative Care - Walk the Talk!
Organisation: SOS Children’s Villages
Dates: 8-9 November 2016
Location: Paris, France
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
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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
Amnesty International: Researcher/Adviser ESCR (Housing)
Application deadline: 23 September 2016
Location: London, United Kingdom
European Roma Rights Centre: Fundraising Consultant
Application deadline: 30 September 2016
Location: Budapest, Hungary
HURIDOCS: Executive Director
Application deadline: 15 October 2016
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Oak Institute: Fellowship in film/photography and human rights
Application deadline: 2 December 2016
Location: Maine, United States
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THE LAST WORD
The successor to Russia's recently dismissed Children's Ombudsman Pavel Astakhov has shown that she also has what it takes to be one of the most controversial figures in children's rights. Astakhov was fired after a string of offensive and insensitive comments, culminating in asking a group of child survivors from a boating accident: "How was your swim?".
The woman who has taken up his post, Anna Kuznetsova (described by Russian media simply as " A mother of six who is loyal to Putin"), was only appointed last week but has already made headlines for previous comments on a debunked theory on the "memory" of cells in the womb. While Kuznetsova has claimed that she never gave the interview the original author stands by the article, in which the new Ombudsman reportedly commented on how " information-wavelength memory" in the womb's cells can affect the morals of future children.
Adding fuel to the fire, a prominent Russian lawyer also noted that she was a member of a social media group titled: "HIV/AIDS -- the biggest mystification of the XX century". While both are dangerous statements, a children's Ombudsman who denies the existence of HIV and AIDS would be particularly disastrous for Russia, a country which ranks among the top ten countries with the fastest-growing incidence of HIV/Aids. Back to top
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