CRINmail 1511:
In this issue:
CRIN's end of year spectacular
Winners and losers
Honorary mentions
Children calling the shots
Being #1 doesn’t always mean being the best
Cash rules everything around me
Post-truth and the need for resilience
Upcoming events
Employment
CRIN's End of year spectacular
[To be read aloud using your best Donald Trump voice]
A lot of people are saying that 2016 was a bad year for children’s rights. Let me tell you folks - let me tell you there were some yuuuge, terrific, tremendous decisions for kids in 2016. Some people, total lightweights, got really out of control, and tried to stop the amazing successes we were working on - and they thought they were going to get away with it! WRONG!
These losers thought everybody would just feel bad about all the elections, referendums or whatever that they lost. But here’s the thing. We’ve got all these good news stories from 2016 and we want you to get out there and share them with phony, crooked losers who say everything is awful. It’s not true. It’s just not true.
We’ve built a big, beautiful CRINmail to mark the end of the year with lots of stories about people winning, and you’ll never get bored. You’ll never get bored with this winning! Let me just say, it’s been amaaazing, and we can’t wait to see what 2017 brings.
With best holiday wishes (and sarcasm),
The CRIN team
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The year in (mostly) good news
[To be read using whichever voice you normally read CRINmails in]
Winners and loser
Well, where to start? There’s little more we can say about the looming reality of President Trump. While his election could represent an opportunity for the United States to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (and catch up with the rest of the world in the process) we expect much more time will be spent tweeting about Alec Baldwin’s flawless impressions than improving children’s rights. The Philippines’ new President Duterte also shocked the world again and again, making jokes about gang rape, pledging to sever ties with the nation’s longtime allies, and most recently admitting to killing people while cruising around the city on his motorcycle.
Brexit also represented bad news for children in the United Kingdom, with many rights and membership benefits stripped from all children without allowing them a say in their future. Some under-18s protested after not being able to vote in the referendum, arguing that a narrow majority of voters opted to leave the European Union, with the older demographic coming out in force, blocking the wishes of an overwhelmingly pro-EU generation of young people.
However, some truly awful officials were also booted out of office, with the Russian children’s ombudsperson, Pavel Astakhov resigning over comments made to children who survived a deadly boating accident. Astakhov previously drew condemnation after making comments on child marriage, effectively endorsing the practice by saying that many women were “already shrivelled at age 27” and was outspoken in his criticism of LGBT groups and families.
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"), previously made headlines for comments on a debunked theory of "information-wavelength memory" in the womb's cells, which ‘can affect the morals of future children’. We look forward to a new era of gaffes and retracted statements during her term.
For the first time, the UN Secretary-General was also appointed in a somewhat transparent manner, with candidates taking part in live televised debates for the first time. An official aptitude test was given to candidates by the fine folks at the Ewenited Nations - challenging them to use the right language, express concern and call for all sides to act with restraint in just the right ways to snag the top job. While it might be a while before the next SG election, we heartily recommend you take the test here to see if you might have what it takes.
Finally, in what must qualify as some kind of near-Christmas miracle, the UN voted to defeat an amendment to the Human Rights Council’s annual report that sought to indefinitely halt the work of the newly appointed UN expert on discrimination faced by lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. While the vote was close it serves as a reminder that determination at the UN can pay off, and that slow but steady progress on eliminating discrimination is possible.
Honorary mentions
In the characteristically 2016 spirit of give and take, ebb and flow, yin and yang, the year saw the award and revocation of honorary titles to certain not-so-honourable characters.
Popular Zambian singer and convicted child rapist Clifford Dimba was pardoned by President Edgar Lungu a year into his sentence and subsequently appointed as an ambassador against gender-based violence. The President eventually decided to revoke the appointment, however, presumably after human resources realised they had misread Dimba’s job application and mistaken ‘repeated allegations of assaulting women’ for experience in the field of gender-based violence.
As many of us began to question our faith in the increasingly distant ideals of democracy and rule of law, the United Nations fully embraced the world of fantasy by awarding two fictional characters positions as honorary ambassadors. The Angry Bird ‘Red’ was appointed as Honorary Ambassador for Green for the International Day of Happiness, while ‘Wonder Woman’ was appointed as Honorary Ambassador for the Empowerment of Women and Girls because, well, #he(ro)forshe and #thisgirlcan(humangirlscannot) and #(not)likea(real)girl. Both positions were short lived.
But not all honorary appointments this year were so polarising. Sir Nils Olav of the King of Norway’s Guard, whose honorary role involves inspecting Norwegian soldiers when they visit Scotland, was bestowed the prestigious new title of Brigadier in a special ceremony in the Scottish capital in August. Brigadier Olav has been hailed by left- and right-wingers alike, and is widely regarded to be a beakon of hope for the close collaboration and sharing of birdens between the two countries. The promotion brings Olav closer to the top of the diplomatic pecking order, and he has indicated an unflappable resolve to further strengthen ties between the two nations.
Children calling the shots
Adults do not always know best; and in a year in which a US immigration judge thought three-year-olds can be “trained” to represent themselves in court, the administrators of a South African scholarship programme require applicants to prove they are virgins, and Venezuela’s president DJs a weekly salsa show instead of addressing the country’s economic and health crisis, children in parts of the world have had no other choice but to take matters into their own hands.
Take a pupil parliament at a school in the United Kingdom, for example, which this year ruled against charities using “undignified” images of children in distress in their adverts and campaigns to elicit pity and attract donations. “We decided that charities were taking pictures and videos of children who weren’t comfortable,” said Jaedon Osei-Bonsu, aged 10. “We wrote to lots of charities and Save the Children responded to say they are trying to respect the children’s right to dignity but we don’t think trying is enough.”
Then there is the girl from Niger who took her family to court for trying to marry her off to a cousin. "I felt pain inside of me, it really broke my heart," says Balkissa Chaibou, who aspires to become a doctor. "Because I see that I am fighting to fulfil myself, and these people will be an obstacle to my evolution."
Meanwhile as Brazil’s government found the cash to host the 2016 Olympic Games, but then imposed austerity measures which have hit education particularly hard, schoolchildren across the country began occupying their schools in protest. But adults being adults, it somehow made sense to them to throw tear gas and fire rubber bullets at the students rather than listen to their demands. Children also made their voices heard in Moldova, where hundreds of protesters challenged the election of a “pro-Russian” president, while the wary winner warned participants “not to play with fire”, forgetting that he is the people’s ambassador, not a fearsome dragon.
Children also have their eyes on the United States government as part of an upcoming climate change lawsuit that has been dubbed the ‘trial of the century’. Trump and his government officials/corporate oil baron posse will have their work cut out for them, as 21 youths aged nine to 20 will attempt to teach them the pollution-is-bad-for-you and clean-air-is-good-for-you science lessons.
Being #1 doesn't always mean being the best
This year Malta became the first country in Europe to ban gay conversion therapy. Under the new law, anyone found guilty of trying to “change, repress or eliminate a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression” will face fines or a jail sentence. The new law also decrees that “no sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression constitutes a disorder, disease or shortcoming of any sort”, and lowers to 16 the age at which people can request a change in gender without their parents’ approval. Malta has launched a number of progressive social reforms since its Labour government was elected in 2013, despite (rather embarrassingly) being the last country in the European Union to legalise divorce in 2011...
In Sri Lanka the Supreme Court prohibited discrimination against people living with HIV in education, saying the judgment would set a precedent and help victims seek justice for other forms of prejudice. Ruling on a case involving a five-year-old boy who was denied admission to school because he was believed to be HIV positive, the Court said children living with or affected by HIV have the full right to education.
Russia however, is still getting it wrong, with so-called health experts misunderstanding the point of condoms, which they blamed for the spread of HIV. According to a study by the Russian Institute of Strategic Research, the prospect of safer sex through condom use is encouraging people, including under-18s, to have sex, and therefore increasing the risk of spreading sexually transmitted diseases.
Our blog comparing how Euro 2016 countries score on justice issues found that while Belgium may be champions on access to justice, UK nations claim three of the semi-final slots for having the lowest age at which a child can be convicted of a crime. Five Euro 2016 nations allow children as young as 10 to be found criminally responsible, including England, Northern Ireland and Wales. Where the English and Welsh really set themselves apart, however, is in sentencing children to prison for life - particularly with France dropping out of this race earlier in the season. Read more about the children’s rights league for Euro 2016 countries.
Cash rules everything around me
Money talks, and this year some people used or rejected money to put across the right message. The Girl Scouts of Western Washington in the United States were one example, rejecting a $100,000 gift after its donor insisted the money not be used for transgender participants. The decision to return the money was a no-brainer, and after they publicly declined the cash an online fundraiser was launched to replace the amount in full. So far, more than $165,000 has been raised. Earlier this year, the American Family Association also launched a petition demanding the Girl Scouts rescind their policy on inclusion, but their response noted that the Girl Scouts USA have "valued and supported all girls" not just "one type of girl," since the organisation was founded in 1912.
Inspired by outrage over a big pharma company's decision to hike the price of a lifesaving drug, eight Australian schoolboys recreated it in their chemistry lab for just $20 a pill. The drug, Daraprim, is produced by Turing Pharmaceuticals, which came under fire last year when chief executive Martin Shkreli raised the price of some medicines by as much as 5,000 percent. Though they can't sell the drugs they made due to FDA regulations (and because Turing owns the rights to market the pills). The project will be shared online, to help find cures for deadly diseases through openly sharing research.
Also on pharmaceuticals, two companies, Pfizer and Flynn Pharma were fined a record amount for charging unfair prices for an anti-epilepsy drug in the UK. The Competition and Markets Authority fined Pfizer £84.2 million and Flynn Pharma £5.2 million after they increased prices by as much as 2,600 percent in September 2012. The companies apparently hiked the price of a drug which is relied upon by thousands of patients, costing the country’s health service tens of millions of pounds. The cost for 100-milligram packs of the drug "rocketed" from £2.83 to £67.50, before dropping to £54 in May 2014.
In the US, the rejection of a permit for the Dakota Access pipeline to drill under the Missouri river has handed a major victory to the Standing Rock Sioux tribe after a months-long campaign against the pipeline. For months, they have protested over fears that the pipeline would contaminate their water source and destroy sacred sites. Alice Brown Otter, a 13-year-old from the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, said that she was one of the Native youth who ran to Washington DC to draw attention to the protests. “A lot of people didn’t believe in us that we were going to change the world, us 13-year-olds and 15-year-olds,” she said.
Uganda and a number of other African States have challenged private education providers which are becoming increasingly prevalent in the region. The dispute with Bridge International Academies triggered a debate about the proliferation and quality of low-cost private schools in developing nations. Uganda’s high court ordered the closure of a chain of the private schools and others are considering action. The speed of the organisation’s expansion has caused alarm in Uganda and elsewhere, particularly among teaching unions. Critics, including UN officials and human rights organisations, accuse Bridge of delivering poor-quality learning and exploiting the poor for profit.
To top off all the good news we thought it worth a mention that child poverty in the UK seems to no longer be a problem. As the government makes moves to abolish the civil service team dealing with child poverty we’d like to observe that earlier this year a woman sitting on a golden chair encouraged people to live within their means during a time of austerity, while addressing a room full of millionaires. She also voiced support for longer working hours with less pay for junior doctors while wearing a hat encrusted with five rubies, 11 emeralds, 17 sapphires, 273 pearls and 2,868 diamonds before returning to her £1 billion house. Her crown left shortly afterwards in its own horse-drawn carriage.
Post-truth and the need for resilience
If you’ve made it this far, congratulations. We know CRINmails can be a grim read, but if you’re one of the people who gets through it all week after week then you’re probably just behind this guy in terms of sheer will and determination. To keep you all on your toes we added a few parodies, fake stories and one penguin to this CRINmail, so kudos if you spotted all of those as well. Finally, for the end of 2016, we leave you with...
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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
European Roma Rights Centre: Human rights monitors
Application deadline: 31 December 2016
Locations: Czech Republic, Serbia, and Slovakia
CRIN: Russian-speaking Research Intern
Application deadline: 22 January 2017
Location: London, United Kingdom
THE LAST WORD
Promoting the use of clear language among children's rights advocates
The past year was no surprise to our eyes and ears, as we jadedly expected to read and hear NGOs and the UN continue to use words as nebulous as pathfinder and thought leadership. The worst offenders, however, were not jargon per se, but the UN’s so-called “grammar of impotence”, which saw States reiterating, reaffirming, and recalling their points time and time again, as they take note of how grieved and alarmed they are, and urge and request that action be taken, albeit falling on deaf ears.
So in the naive hope that 2017 will be a jargon-free year, free of discussions about achieving innovation and paradigm shifts as organisations try to ideate and share deliverables during cluster meetings, here are three totally unrelated words that we think have had enough protagonism for one year:
1) Sustainable
2) Development
3) Goals
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