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In this issue:
Latest news and reports
- Sexual abuse and gender-based violence
- State violence
- Armed conflict
- Health
Upcoming events
Employment
LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Sexual abuse and gender-based violence
Seven percent of Australia’s Catholic priests have been accused of abusing children since 1950, according to the country’s royal commission into institutional responses to child sexual abuse. A total of 4,444 people reported incidents of child sexual abuse relating to 93 Catholic church authorities between 1980 and 2015. The overwhelming majority of survivors were male, with an average age of ten. Almost 1,900 perpetrators were identified and another 500 remain unidentified. The royal commission also revealed that the Vatican refused to hand over documents involving Australian priests accused of abuse. Senior Counsel Gail Furness said that the Holy See responded to requests for information by saying that it was “neither possible nor appropriate to provide the information requested”. Furness added that responses from Catholic dioceses and orders nationwide were “depressingly similar”. She added: “Children were ignored or worse, punished. Allegations were not investigated. Priests and religious [brothers] were moved. The parishes or communities to which they were moved knew nothing of their past,” she said. “Documents were not kept or they were destroyed. Secrecy prevailed as did cover-ups”.
The videotaped gang rape of a 16-year-old girl has outraged Haitians and triggered angry debate about unpunished violence against women and girls. The girl was attacked on 4 January but did not report the crime until the video taken by her attackers was circulated online. Police are still looking for the men who carried out the assault, but in the meantime the case has drawn attention to the country’s problems with gender violence, and how perpetrators often get away without punishment. A report in 2012 by the UN peacekeeping mission in Haiti highlighted that violence against women is a systemic problem, and that in 2013, out of 62 rape cases reported to police in the capital over three months, not a single one went to trial. This impunity goes hand-in-hand with the male-dominated nature of Haitian society, said Florence Elie, the citizen ombudsperson for the Haitian government. Elie added that Haitian society is hypocritical when it comes to violence against women, with poverty faced by many Haitians meaning that society ignores problems like sexual violence until faced with them up close.
State violence
It is not yet known if Iran went ahead with the execution of a juvenile offender, scheduled to take place last Saturday, following calls from a group of UN human rights experts to stay the execution. The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights claimed that the offender, Hamid Ahmadi, was 17 years old when he was sentenced to death in 2009 for the fatal stabbing of a young man during a fight between five boys. The court relied on confessions reportedly obtained under torture and ill-treatment at a police station. While there is currently no news about Ahmadi, Iran has been scheduling and carrying out executions frequently since the beginning of the year. On 17 January, the same UN experts also called for a stay of execution for another juvenile in Iran, but were later informed that two juveniles were hanged on 15 and 18 January. The UN Special Rapporteurs on human rights in Iran, summary and arbitrary executions, torture and the Chairperson of the Committee on the Rights of the Child underlined that international standards unequivocally forbid the imposition and execution of the death penalty on persons below 18 years of age.
UN staff have documented numerous examples of “ devastating cruelty” in the treatment of Rohingya children and adults by State security forces in Myanmar, with reports of mass gang rapes, beating and killings. In a new report based on interviews with victims across the border in Bangladesh, refugees reported witnessing family members being killed, women being subjected to sexual violence, and infants and young children being murdered with knives. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein, called for military operations against the Rohingya to end, citing unprecedented levels of violence towards civilians in government “clearance operations”. As well as violence against many individual children, the report also contains consistent accounts of hundreds of Rohingya houses, schools, markets, shops, madrasas and mosques being burnt down by the army, police and sometimes civilian mobs. The full report calls for the Burmese government to halt the grave human rights violations being perpetrated against its people, concluding that the widespread violations are likely to amount to crimes against humanity.
As many as 540 children were murdered in El Salvador last year, according to the latest national police statistics. Around 95 percent of child murder victims were between 12 and 17 in 2016, and anonymous police sources told daily newspaper La Prensa Gráfica that most would have been killed due to their involvement in gang activity. As well as murder, children frequently face violence in school, with between 14,000 and 15,000 students dropping out in 2016 because of the threat of violence, according to government officials. Gangs are reportedly sending young members into schools to recruit others and sell drugs, leading to heightened suspicion of and pressure to criminalise children. The State’s response to gangs has also become increasingly violent, with criminal gangs often treated as “terrorist organisations” and attacked by military forces rather than the police.
Policymakers in the Philippines have approved plans to ban corporal punishment. The House of Representatives’ Committee on Welfare of Children gave the green light to the proposed Positive and Non-Violent Discipline of Children Act, which states that those who use physical means to discipline a child could face penalties of up to six months in jail. Despite the positive moves on ending some violence against children, the House’s Speaker, Bebot Alvarez, has claimed that he is not willing to negotiate on another bill seeking to lower the minimum age of criminal responsibility from 15 years old to nine. Alvarez continues to take a stand in favour of criminalising children despite testimony from experts and the opposition of the country’s Department of Social Welfare and Development. As the country is also considering the reintroduction of the death penalty, it is feared that children could be executed for serious crimes if both bills are accepted.
Armed conflict
An attack on a village in Yemen carried out by the United States caused the death of 11 children, including as many as 23 civilians, according to human rights group Reprieve. Despite the Trump administration initially downplaying reports of civilian casualties, US officials have now conceded that civilians were “likely killed”. A heavily pregnant mother was shot in the stomach during the raid, and subsequently gave birth to an injured baby boy who died last Tuesday. The US military has said that President Trump personally approved Sunday’s raid, despite concerns over the quality of the intelligence behind it. Secret US strikes, in countries where the US is not at war, are widely considered to violate international law. Previous research by Reprieve has found that, in attempts to kill 41 named individuals in Yemen and Pakistan, US strikes have killed some 1,147 men, women and children.
The number of children killed and maimed in the Afghan war dramatically increased last year, according to the UN, which has documented the highest civilian casualty toll in the country since 2001. In a report released on Monday, the UN documented 11,418 casualties, a three percent increase since 2015, including 3,498 deaths. Child casualties rose 24 percent – to 923 killed and 2,589 wounded – mainly as a result of ground engagements closer to residential areas, and explosive remnants of war. Since 2014, international forces have largely withdrawn and fighting has moved into villages and closer to cities. The UN attributes 61 percent of casualties to anti-government groups, chiefly the Taliban, and 22 percent to pro-government Afghan forces. The battle for territory has meant unexploded ammunition has become a major hazard. The UN said 86 percent of casualties sustained by unexploded ordnance were children, with 183 killed and 426 injured, often when collecting scrap metal, tending to livestock or playing. Last year, after nearly 100 countries had signed Protocol V of the UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, it was finally ratified by the Afghan government, obliging it to clear explosive remnants of war.
As fighting resumes in eastern Ukraine thousands of children have been forced out of classes amid fears that schools will again be shelled. In the wake of the renewed conflict, UNICEF has condemned indiscriminate attacks on schools and called for all sides to immediately recommit to the ceasefire signed in August 2015. At least five schools and two kindergartens have recently been damaged by heavy shelling and 11 other schools have had to close, according to humanitarian organisations supporting the emergency education response in Ukraine. More than 2,600 children from 13 schools in government-controlled areas in eastern Ukraine have been affected by the sharp escalation in fighting, along with hundreds more from schools in non-government controlled areas. After nearly three years of conflict more than 740 schools have been damaged or destroyed by fighting.
Health
Pollution levels in Mongolia’s capital city have reached 80 times the safety level set by the World Health Organization, causing serious health risks, particularly for children. Levels of particulate matter in the air in Ulaanbaatar were five times higher than in Beijing during the city’s worst smog of 2016. Power plants have been working overtime to provide electricity during the harsh winter, but many homes in the outskirts of the city are not connected to the city-level electricity grid, and so use highly toxic coal furnaces to heat homes. UNICEF has warned that children under five and the unborn are at greatest risk: “Children are projected to suffer unprecedented levels of chronic respiratory disease later in life… The alarming levels of air pollution in Ulaanbaatar during the long winter cannot be neglected any longer, as their short and long-term negative health impact has been demonstrated, especially for children”. According to a statement published on the government’s website, a wing of a military hospital in the city has been opened for children with pneumonia as the city’s hospitals are filled to capacity.
A growing trend for medical professionals to carry out female genital mutilation (FGM) is undermining the global effort to eradicate the practice, according to human rights experts. Morissanda Kouyate, head of the Inter-African Committee on Traditional Practices has warned that “[m]edicalisation is one of the biggest threats against the programme to eliminate FGM” and has called on professional medical and health associations to expel members who perform FGM. Medicalisation of the practice entered mainstream debate in June last year, when the Economist magazine argued that “minor” forms of FGM should be allowed to prevent extreme harm from more invasive forms. The approach was widely criticised by campaign groups working on the issue who condemned it as “dangerous and entirely unfounded”, containing “many misguided assumptions” and “discredits the experiences of women who have undergone FGM.” An estimated 200 million people have undergone FGM and though the rate at which children are subjected to the practice is falling, population rises mean that the number of women and girls who have experienced this violence continues to rise.
The Philippine Department of Education has rejected a proposal to distribute condoms in public high schools, backtracking on an announcement by the Education Secretary in December last year. Campaign groups have spoken out against the policy change, pointing to the rise in HIV infections among children and young people. In December 2016, the Philippines recorded an average of 20 new HIV infections per day and 29 percent of this group were aged 15 to 24. Adolescents, particularly men who have sex with men, have some of the fastest growth rates for new infections. Conservative lawmakers, such as Senator Vicente Sotto III, have been lobbying against the distribution of condoms, arguing that it would encourage students to “indulge in sex”, despite compelling evidence to the contrary.
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Employment
Terre des Hommes: Campaign Coordinator
Application deadline: 13 February 2017
Location: Brussels, Belgium
UNFPA-UNICEF: Child Marriage Evaluability Assessment Consultants
Application deadline: 17 February 2017
Location: Negotiable
European Roma Rights Centre: Community Legal Work Consultant
Application deadline: 17 February 2017
Location: Budapest, Hungary
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LEAK OF THE WEEK
The government of the United Kingdom revealed today that it will close its scheme for accepting unaccompanied refugee children after taking in just 350 under the 'Dubs amendment'. The move comes despite earlier promises to provide shelter for 3,000 children currently stranded without family in France. However, even this number represents a tiny fraction of the 90,000 lone child refugees believed to have come to Europe in 2015, to say nothing of arrivals during 2016.
Immigration minister, Robert Goodwill, told MPs that one further group of 150 children would be brought to Britain but they will be the last to be transferred under the scheme. As well as the children themselves, the U-turn will come as particularly hard news for those staffing reception centres in France. Squalid conditions, a lack of resources and suspicions over age-verification have left many children " neglected" after Home Office rejections, with at least one child suspected to have killed himself following a long period of indecision over whether or not he would be given refugee status.
The move may be seen by other States as a message that abdicating the responsibility to protect children is acceptable, but this will no doubt result in years of court battles as children languish in reception centres or are forced out of State care. | 
