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CHILDREN'S ACCESS TO JUSTICE
Exactly one year ago today CRIN launched its global access to justice report, the first-ever study of how effectively children around the world can use the law to challenge violations of their rights. To mark the occasion, today’s CRINmail rounds up some positive developments in key areas and contexts of children’s access to justice since February last year.
Child-led litigation
In June in Pakistan, with the country’s Supreme Court declared a seven-year-old girl’s lawsuit challenging the use of fossil fuels fit for hearing. Rabab Ali, who filed the case through her father, argues that the continued exploitation and promotion of fossil fuels by federal and provincial governments is in violation of the youngest generation’s constitutional right to life and the public trust. The Court decided that the case is admissible and that it should be heard alongside several other pending environmental cases.
Previously the African Commission on Human Rights ordered the Ethiopian government to pay $150,000 in compensation to a girl, who was raped, abducted and forced to marry at the age of 13, after she challenged the government’s failure to prevent her abuse and to provide her with justice. Although the perpetrators were initially convicted, an appeals court overturned the verdicts and the men were freed on the basis of a law - now repealed - precluding the prosecution of a rapist who subsequently marries their victim. The girl, with the help of her father and two NGOs, sought redress from the national courts but when domestic avenues were exhausted, they filed a complaint at the African Commission. Human rights advocates welcomed the Commission’s decision as a victory for the child in the case as well as for all other girls who are victims of sexual violence.
A federal appeals court in the United States also ruled in favour of a transgender boy who sued his school for discrimination for not letting him use the boys’ bathroom. The school introduced a policy that requires children to use the bathroom of their “corresponding biological sex”. The appeals court sent the case back to the district court, which previously rejected his claim that he should be entitled to use the bathroom for his preferred gender, this time having clarified that the school’s policy contradicts Title IX, a federal law prohibiting discrimination in schools. This ruling is expected to have significant impact and it also applies to North Carolina where a pending suit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union challenges a state law that prohibits transgender people from using the bathroom corresponding to their preferred gender in state schools and all public agencies.
Setting precedents
Last year's life sentence handed down to Chad’s ex-ruler between 1982 and 1990, Hissène Habré, for war crimes signalled the first time in Africa in which a former leader is prosecuted for international law crimes in another African country under the principle of universal jurisdiction. Habré was sentenced to life imprisonment for war crimes, torture and crimes against humanity, including rape and sexual slavery, in a landmark trial before the Extraordinary African Chambers (EAC) in Senegal. He was accused of personally committing rapes, with some of the victims as young as 13. The EAC is due to hold reparations hearings and is mandated to establish a Trust Fund for all victims, whether or not they participated in the proceedings. Habré has since launched an appeal against the conviction.
In June, Vietnam opened its first children’s court in the capital, Ho Chi Minh. It will have jurisdiction over criminal cases in which the accused or the victim is under the age of 18, as well as over family disputes involving children. Meanwhile, the National Assembly passed a new child law keeping that age of majority at 16. It had been proposed that the age be increased to 18 to match global trends and the standard of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. However lawmakers claimed that “children are maturing faster” and the proposed increase might lead to more juvenile crime with 16- and 17-year-olds undeterred by adult penalties.
Meanwhile in April, Jordan’s justice department agreed to delete a controversial Penal Code provision that pardons rapists if they marry their victims. Under Article 308, sexual intercourse with girls aged 15 to 18 is considered rape, but should it be proven that such sexual activity was consensual, “the punishment is dropped if they tie the knot” and remain wed for a period of at least five years. Activists claim that a staggering 95 percent of rapes go unpunished as a result of this law. The bill will have to negotiate “many legal channels before it is approved”, according to an official from the Ministry of Justice.
Challenging abuse in closed institutions
In September Guam enacted legislation to end limitation periods for child sexual abuse claims, reforms that have enabled victims to bring complaints to court for historic sexual abuse, in particular against religious institutions. The changes come amid allegations from at least four former altar boys that Archbishop Apuron, the highest ranking Catholic cleric in Guam, sexually abused them when he was their parish priest in the 1970s. The Catholic Church has been conducting an investigation into the actions of Apuron for the past three months and has recommended that he be removed from office, though he is yet to be formally charged with a criminal offence. The head of the Vatican’s investigation, Archbishop Savio Hon Tai-Fai, had urged the Governor of Guam not to sign the bill, claiming that to do so would likely leave the church facing bankruptcy in the face of court claims for redress for historic sexual abuse. Multiple child abuse lawsuits have since been filed in court.
In April in France, police began an investigation against the cardinal of the diocese of Lyon for failing to report five cases of sexual abuse against children, committed by priests between the 1980s and 2000s. The scandal prompted the Catholic Church to publicly pledge to expose all cases of paedophilia, and in June sacked four priests. French schools have also been affected by a spate of child abuse allegations with 27 incidents of sexual abuse or the making of indecent images being recorded in 2015.
However in May, journalists in the United States have revealed significant expenditure by the church in a bid to oppose legal changes designed to enhance access to justice for victims of sexual abuse. Over USD$2 million were paid by the New York Roman Catholic church to the city’s most influential lobbying firms, including for their efforts to halt the progress of the Child Victims Act, which proposes to eliminate limitation periods for bringing civil and criminal cases. The bill has been gaining bipartisan support but did not attain the required votes in the New York Legislature before the end of the legislative session on 16 June. Current law in New York only allows victims to bring their case before their 23rd birthday and is said to be one of the most restrictive regimes in the country. In Pennsylvania, the Catholic Church has attracted criticism for attempting to ‘name and shame’ Catholic lawmakers who supported state legislation extending limitation periods for civil claims against abusive priests until the victim reached 50 years of age.
Read more on the campaign to end sexual violence in religious institutions for more information about sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, including a selection of case law.
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NEWS IN BRIEF
Child protection
Corporal punishment
State violence
Discrimination
Sexual health
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Call for submissions: Global Inclusion Award
Organisation: Child and Youth Finance International
Submission deadline: 20 February 2017
Funding opportunity: Contemporary Forms of Slavery
Organisation: UN Voluntary Trust Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery
Application deadline: 1 March 2017
Funding opportunity: Victims of Torture
Organisation: UN Voluntary Fund for Victims of Torture
Application deadline: 1 March 2017
Global: Children’s Peace Prize 2017
Organisation: KidsRights
Submission deadline: 17 March 2017
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
Education: 2017 Institute of the Center for Education Diplomacy
Organisation: Association for Childhood Education International
Dates: 20 - 22 April 2017
Location: Washington, DC, United States
Education: Online court on Child Rights-based Approaches
Organisation: Human Rights Education Associates
Dates: 26 April - 11 July 2017
Location: Online
Europe: Justice for Children Award
Organisations: DCI and OMCT
Submission deadline: 30 April 2017
Best interests: International Conference on Shared Parenting
Organisations: National Parents Organization & the International Council on Shared Parenting
Dates: 29-31 May 2017
Location: Boston, United States
Education: Child Rights Governance
Organisation: Human Rights Education Associates
Dates: 31 May - 11 July 2017
Location: Online
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EMPLOYMENT
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
Oak Foundation: Programme Officer - Child Abuse Programme
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Application deadline: 19 February 2017
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Last word
“When we think of children and justice, the first image that comes to people’s minds is usually one of children breaking the law. Rarely do we consider children and their right to use the legal system to protect their human rights or to seek redress when their rights have been violated. [But] like adults, [children] have human rights and when these rights are infringed they should be able to trust and use the legal system to get justice.”
-- Veronica Yates, CRIN director
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