CRINmail 1509:

In this issue:

The Year in Children's Rights: CRIN's Annual Report 2016

CRIN’s annual report for 2016 is out now and available here. Rather than looking exclusively at CRIN’s work our annual report aims to provide a snapshot of the progress made and the challenges we still face in realising children’s rights globally. The report is based on information gathered from the news, at the UN and on legal reform around the world between September 2015 and December 2016.

We believe that information is a powerful and necessary tool for advocacy. It gives us an authoritative platform to highlight gaps both to bolster advocacy efforts by others and to establish the foundation for our own research, policy and advocacy work. Where we recognise a pattern of violations or a gap in children’s rights advocacy, we determine whether to take action. This report is one small part of that work, to make sure all children’s rights are covered - and eventually fulfilled.

Download the full report here.

Chapter 1: A global picture of children’s rights 

Stories throughout 2016 demonstrated a need for justice, accountability and redress for children's rights violations. CRIN played a part in this by ranking every country on how effectively children can use the law to challenge violations of their rights, in the first-ever global study on children’s access to justice. The report, ‘Rights, Remedies and Representation’, illuminated how countries compare when it comes to ensuring that every child rights violation has a remedy, condensing findings from 197 country reports.

Justice remains out of reach for many, as demonstrated by the ongoing scandal surrounding sexual abuse perpetrated by UN peacekeepers. In contrast two men were sentenced to more than 100 years in prison each this year, for their role in forcing women and girls into sexual and domestic slavery during Guatemala’s civil war.

The former vice president of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) Jean-Pierre Bemba was convicted of war crimes at the International Criminal Court (ICC), a reparations hearing was held for the victims of war criminal Thomas Lubanga and Dominic Ongwen, a former child soldier and commander in the Lord’s Resistance Army, was also finally brought to trial. Despite this Burundi, South Africa and Gambia all decided to withdraw from the jurisdiction of the Court, alleging that, among other reasons, the tribunal was disproportionately persecuting and humiliating Africans.

A UN-mandated human rights inquiry concluded that the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is responsible for committing genocide against Yazidis, while the world continued to dither over how to help civilians in Iraq and Syria, as well as those affected by conflicts in Yemen, South Sudan and many other States. Continued attacks on civilians, political instability and violent criminal gangs have led many to flee their homes and contributed to the world’s refugee crisis, unfolding from the shores of the Mediterranean to the US border with Mexico. Many found that they traded one rights violation for another however as young refugees, particularly in Europe, found themselves barred by fences, detained in unsuitable conditions or left to dwell in under-resourced makeshift refugee camps.

Funding also played a huge part in the work of human rights defenders. The Panama Papers, a leak of more than 11 million confidential financial documents exposed a system enabling crime, corruption and wrongdoing, hidden by secretive offshore companies. Leaks like this go some way to explaining why governments continue to lack resources to fulfil human rights, as evidenced by the severe financial crisis endured this year by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

CRIN published a paper looking at how diminishing political space is affecting children’s rights and the work of their advocates in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, though the trend has been visible in virtually every region. Crackdowns on civil society have been especially harsh in Turkey and Ethiopia while bills designed to restrict the activities of non-governmental organisations were passed in Egypt and Israel despite campaigns against them. However, the UN added transparency to proceedings this year by holding debates between candidates for the job of Secretary-General. The Committee on the Rights of the Child also elected a tranche of new members, while the appointment of an Independent Expert on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity was confirmed despite a move to block the mandate before it was even established.

The UN’s Special Rapporteur on Toxics chose to dedicate his annual report to the impacts of toxics and pollution on children’s rights, while the Committee on the Rights of the Child’s Day of General Discussion brought together State parties, international experts and civil society representatives to discuss Children’s Rights and the Environment. In the coming months CRIN will work with others to explore new arguments, such as the idea of toxic trespass - the fact that we are inundated with toxins in the air we breathe, water we drink and food we drink without having consented to their presence, and actions to embed new ways of thinking.  

Children’s rights in the digital realm also came under discussion this year, with complaints about children’s privacy being violated, minimum ages for joining an online service  being set and numerous lawsuits about the collection of data from children’s app usage without their consent. However, digital developments are happening piecemeal and the children’s rights response is reactive. While companies are occasionally held to account governments are allowed to get away with much more comprehensive and intrusive data collection and, thanks to the UK’s Prevent counter terrorism strategy, tracking everything they search for at school.

Chapter 2: The year ahead 

Efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), already underway, will inevitably steer children’s rights advocacy in the coming years in the direction of international donors. Some of the goals and targets focus on children, but fail to explicitly recognise children’s rights. If rights are to be more than rhetoric, access to justice must be recognised as a goal that underlies and supports the realisation of all other goals.

The Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty is all set, with Manfred Nowak at the helm as Independent Expert. It is our hope that he will ensure recognition of the global scandal that more than a million children are locked up, most in penal systems, but many others in “administrative detention” in various settings and systems including health, mental health, welfare, education and immigration control. It is clear to us that the Convention on the Rights of the Child, read holistically, requires that the only justification for locking up a child is that they have been assessed as posing a serious risk to others’ or their own safety and that risk cannot be reduced to an acceptable level without their detention.

Huge amounts of money have been invested in the new Global Fund to End Violence against Children, which will support the work of the Global Partnership, of which we are proud to be a member. We hope it will be inclusive and embrace those who have the courage to challenge all forms of violence, including those which are not yet recognised as such.

A new High-Level Working Group of Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents has been established. The group, announced at the 69th World Health Assembly, aims to achieve the goals set out in the World Health Organisation’s global strategy. We hope the Group will take on issues yet to be recognised in human rights standards, such as male circumcision, as well as those in need of stronger action, such as the impact of toxic chemicals on children.

Children’s rights, solidarity and the European Union (EU): As the United Kingdom’s shock decision to leave the EU is absorbed into public consciousness, we hope this will not set a precedent. In any case, we will investigate what this decision will mean for charities - perhaps leading an exodus. Those acting as the impetus for the leave vote were the same false prophets calling for fences, borders and prisons to surround those fleeing crisis - a situation reflected across the continent. We will continue to pierce all these debates with the language of rights.
  

Chapter 3: How you can use CRIN

Website

The focus of all our digital services is advocacy - whether our own, or to support that of others. We do this by sharing our accessible online guides and other tools. The site also features a campaigns section, which looks at the problem, the solution and how to get involved. The website also explains our work and what we do, and has dedicated spaces for our monitoring, research, policy and advocacy work, as well as a comprehensive news service.

Guides

Our Guides section features information, guides and toolkits - all written in plain language - to help our different users to promote, protect and advocate for children’s rights. They are all free to access, download, use and share.

The material in this section covers an introduction to children's rights, user guides aimed at practitioners, the world’s children’s rights mechanisms,  children, the law and legal systems, using CRIN’s campaigns and advocacy toolkits and communications and research.

CRINmail

CRINmail continues to be the flagship publication of our work on children’s rights. It is a regular email news and information list, produced in English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian - and now Chinese, that covers both general children’s rights issues as well as four thematic areas of our work (see below). CRINmails offer a selection of news and analysis, events, reports, case law, calls for participation and employment announcements.

In addition to supplying information and support, the CRINmail launches campaigns, highlights neglected or emerging issues, and promotes the work of children's rights advocates and organisations around the world. Across the ten different CRINmails, there are well over 10,000 subscribers. Anyone can subscribe to the list free of charge and submit information for inclusion.

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NEWS IN BRIEF

Civil and political rights

MOLDOVA: Children protest against the presidential election results

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Haitian nationals repatriated without respect for international norms
 

Child labour

Slavery and trafficking

MAURITANIA: Anti-slavery groups disappointed by Mauritania Appeal Court decision

MALAYSIA: Infants being sold to the highest bidder online

IRAN: parents selling their children out of economic desperation

Health and consent

IRAQ: Nearly half of children in Mosul now cut off from clean water as conflict intensifies

ISRAEL: Rabbi uses Ethiopians, Sudanese infants for circumcision training

AUSTRALIA: Students recreate Martin Shkreli price-hike drug in school lab
 

Sexual abuse

SENEGAL: Quebec priest accused of sexual abuse partially admits crimes to journalists

CANADA: Students launch lawsuit over physical, sexual and emotional abuse at school

BANGLADESH: Draft law may result in children being pressured to marry their rapists
 

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UPCOMING EVENTS
 

Investment: E-course on child rights public budgeting
Organisation: Human Rights Education Associates
Dates: 18 January - 1 February 2017
Location: Online

Asia: Course on "Frontiers of Children's Rights in the ASEAN Region"
Organisations: Leiden Law School et al. 
Dates: 23-27 January 2017
Location: Beji, Depok City, Indonesia

Participation: E-course on child participation
Organisation: Human Rights Education Associates
Dates: 1 February - 14 March 2017
Location: Online

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

Europe: Justice for Children Award
Organisations: DCI and OMCT
Submission deadline: 30 April 2017

Best interests: International Conference on Shared Parenting
Organisations: The National Parents Organization & the International Council on Shared Parenting
Dates: 29-31 May 2017
Location: Boston, United States

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EMPLOYMENT

Oak Institute: Fellowship in film/photography and human rights
Application deadline: Extended to 9 December 2016
Location: Maine, United States

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THE LAST WORD

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