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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Abuse in institutions

Hundreds of children and adults living in a residential home in Hungary for people with disabilities have suffered abuse, neglect and torture, an investigation by the Mental Disability Advocacy Centre (MDAC) has revealed.  Members of the organisation found people with multiple disabilities living in “Topház Special Home” in the town of Göd kept inside metal cage beds, physically restrained and behind locked doors, with one young boy trapped in a makeshift straightjacket. Some residents showed signs of malnutrition, while others had untreated open wounds. MDAC and its partners were denied permission to visit in November 2016, but allowed access on 18 April 2017.

After reporting the abuse to police, MDAC catalogued what they termed “systemic failings in law, policy, and regulation and a lack of effective and independent monitoring”, which led to the abuse of up to 220 people at Topház. MDAC demanded the closure of the home, and an investigation into potential misuse of European Union funds by the European Anti-Fraud Office. The government has suspended the current director of Topház and opened a special investigation, claiming it will close the institution, though MDAC’s research indicates that Topház is just the tip of the iceberg, and that a serious investigation is needed into the entire system of institutionalisation in Hungary and across Europe.

CRIN recently released a new guide detailing the legal and practical tools available to end violations of children's rights in institutional care, and to provide information on redress. You can read our new guide here.
 

Sexual abuse

A Catholic nun in Argentina has been charged with helping priests to sexually abuse deaf children, and of participating in the abuse herself. Kosaka Kumiko, who was supposed to care for the hearing-impaired children at the Antonio Provolo Institute, was arrested after it came to light that at least 24 students had accused priests at the centre of sexually abusing them several years ago, with some claiming that she helped cover up or commit further abuses. When several priests were arrested in December 2016, police found magazines featuring naked women and about $34,000 in one priest’s room. Authorities began investigating Kumiko’s role in the scandal when a 17-year-old girl came forward to allege the nun had placed a dressing or diaper over her bleeding wounds after a sexual assault when she was five in an attempt to hide the abuse from other children. Dozens of students in the Provolo Institute’s school in Italy were similarly mistreated for decades, with some victims accusing Nicola Corradi, the same priest who now stands charged of raping and molesting children in Argentina.

The government of Tanzania has vowed to outlaw child marriage with new legislation, but cited a controversial law from Bangladesh as an example of why children should be allowed to marry under “special circumstances”. The law in Bangladesh was blasted by civil society groups and labelled a “step backwards” which could promote rape, domestic violence and early pregnancy in children married off by their families. Including pregnancy as a ‘special case’ is especially troublesome as it could encourage families to pressure girls into marrying their rapists when sexual abuse has taken place. In July 2016, Tanzania’s Constitutional Court ruled that marriage under the age of 18 was illegal, giving the government one year to update its laws. In August 2016, however, Tanzania’s Attorney General George Masaju unexpectedly appealed against the High Court ruling, leaving the government’s current position on reform unclear at best.

Violence against children

Two children were killed last week in the Maguindanao region of the Philippines as part of an anti-drug operation. According to police, suspected drug dealers opened fire on officers who were carrying out a search warrant, resulting in a shoot out. These are not the first cases of children being caught up in anti-drug operations in the country. The Children’s Legal Rights and Development Center has reported that at least 29 children were killed in the first five months of Duterte’s presidency either because they were directly targeted or killed during police operations. In October last year, Duterte referred to children killed in the drug war as “collateral damage”, but his administration has recently taken to dismissing the confirmed death toll as “alternative facts”. The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, Agnes Callamard, is currently visiting the Philippines, but has faced hostility from the government which has prevented her from conducting an official visit. Last year, the government imposed conditions, which would have required her to hold a live debate with the president and take an oath before answering questions from government officials in order to conduct an official visit.

Children in north-eastern Nigeria continue to suffer the deadly effects of Boko Haram’s violent insurgency, the UN has said in a new report. At least 3,900 children were killed and 7,200 maimed between January 2013 and December 2016 amid confrontations between the armed group and Nigerian security forces, according to the UN. The report documents widespread abuses of children’s rights, including recruitment and use as soldiers, abductions, sexual violence, attacks on schools and an increasing use of children in so-called ‘suicide’ attacks. The report was published as news emerged that Boko Haram had released 82 of the school girls who were kidnapped in Chibok three years ago in exchange for prisoners from their group held by the Nigerian government. The exchange was brokered by the Swiss government and the International Commission of the Red Cross, who had helped secure the release of more than 20 girls last October. While the case of the Chibok girls is the most high profile in the country, Boko Haram has abducted thousands of adults and children, whose cases have so far been neglected.

New research in the United States has found that 16 children are hospitalised every day as a result of firearm injuries. The statistics examine cases of children affected by gun violence in the US during 2012, showing striking trends. Nearly 90 percent of gunshot patients were male and half were black, while more than half of the children hospitalised lived in an area where residents fall within the bottom 25 percent of the population for household income. The majority of children under the age of 15 were admitted to hospital as a result of unintentional injuries, most older children were hospitalised as a result of assaults. Alyssa Silver, the lead author of the paper, said “Our findings add urgency to the need for preventive public health measures to reduce gun injuries in children… The fact that 57 percent of firearm-related injuries in children under 15 years old were unintentional, for example, highlights the need for improved gun safety and storage practices.”
 

Refugees and migrants

More than one million children have fled South Sudan because of escalating conflict, while a similar number of children are also displaced within the country, the UN has said. Senior UN refugee agency official Valentin Tapsoba described the current South Sudan refugee crisis as the most worrying in the world. The world's newest nation has been wracked with civil war, which has seen ethnic cleansing and numerous atrocities take place since 2013. Children make up 62 percent of the nearly two million people who have fled to neighbouring countries since the civil war started, according to the latest UN figures. The continued strife is taking its toll on the most vulnerable through trauma, fear, stress and physical upheaval. Furthermore, nearly three-quarters of the country's children are currently out of school — the highest proportion of out-of-school children in the world.

Around 425,000 people have been uprooted by fighting and 465,000 have fled to neighbouring countries from Central African Republic (CAR), with half of those displaced being children. More than 40 percent of children in the country are suffering from chronic malnutrition, one in seven will die before they turn five, and a third are out of school, according to figures from UNICEF. The country's humanitarian response plan for 2017 has only raised $47 million of a requested $400 million to date. Five international aid agencies have also temporarily suspended their operations in northern CAR due to attacks on aid workers by armed groups, while others have scaled back their work. The country has been plagued by conflict since March 2013, when mainly Muslim Seleka rebels seized power, triggering reprisals by Christian "anti-balaka" militias. The Seleka and other groups have since splintered, prompting further violence.

Dozens of migrant domestic workers and their children have been detained and deported from Lebanon, despite not violating their visa conditions, Human rights Watch (HRW) has reported. The deportations had a devastating effect on the women, cutting off their ability to work, splitting up families, and interrupting their children’s education. Many of these women had lived and worked in Lebanon for decades, with children who were born and grew up in the country. One worker told HRW: "I worked for people [in Lebanon] all my life, for 32 years. We worked, worked, me and my husband, to put our children through school, to pay money to educate them there". Lebanon hosts more than 200,000 migrant domestic workers, according to the International Labour Organization, employed under the "Kafala" sponsorship system, which binds them to a single employer and leaves them vulnerable to abuse.
 

Civil and political rights

A Tibetan teenager from Gansu province, China, set himself on fire in protest against Chinese rule last week, in what is the latest in a string of self-immolations by Tibetans aged 18 or under since 2009. An anonymous source inside Tibet told Radio Free Asia that Chagdor Kyab, a 16-year-old student from a farming family, shouted “Tibet wants freedom” and “Let His Holiness the Dalai Lama come back to Tibet” while he burned. According to the source, the teenager tried to run to the local government offices but fell down before reaching the building. Police and military swiftly arrived at the scene to extinguish the flames and remove the body, and local authorities have since imposed tight communications restrictions in the area. It is not known if Chagdor is still alive. As many as 149 Tibetans living in China are believed to have self-immolated since the wave of protests began in February 2009 with the self-immolation of Tapey, a young monk from the Kirti monastery in Sichuan province. Since 2009, 26 of the self-immolations were by Tibetans aged 18 or under.

The king of Saudi Arabia has issued a royal decree allowing women to benefit from government services such as education and healthcare without the consent of a male guardian. Saudi Arabia is notorious for being one of the most gender-segregated countries, where women have traditionally been required to obtain permission from a father, husband or son in order to travel, study, marry or work. The new directive does not appear to address requirements for guardian approval imposed by the private sector, and regulations explicitly requiring guardian approval where there is a “legal basis for this in accordance with the provisions of the Islamic Sharia” will be retained. According to the Human Rights Commission, the Supreme Court has given government agencies three months to review current procedures and explain the statutory basis for those that require a guardian’s approval. Concerns have been raised by women’s rights campaigners about the guardianship directive’s ambiguity and potential lack of enforcement, and many believe the law was introduced to satisfy the Human Rights Commission in relation to the kingdom’s international obligations. On 19 April, Saudi Arabia was elected to serve on the UN Commission on the Status of Women.

A planned overhaul of the Australian migration and citizenship process will make it more difficult to gain citizenship, with applicants to undergo tougher English language tests and demonstrate “Australian values” such as “respect for women and children”. According to Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, the citizenship process should consist of values-based citizenship questions covering issues such as female genital mutilation and forced marriage “because it’s important to reinforce our values”. New requirements would include completion of four years as a permanent resident instead of one, a more stringent English language test involving reading, writing, listening and speaking, and evidence of integration into the community such as employment history, school enrolment or membership of community organisations. The opposition Labor Party suggested that the proposed changes were politically motivated, senator Penny Wong commenting, "It seems a little odd to me that you would actually ask people whether or not they are going to obey the law when they already pledge to obey the law."
 

UPCOMING EVENTS

Juvenile justice: Youth Justice Summit
Organisation: Youth Justice Legal Centre
Date: 12 May 2017
Location: London, United Kingdom

Course: Implementing the UN Guidelines for Alternative Care of Children
Organisation: CELCIS
Date: 15 May 2017
Location: Online

Conference: Children on the move in southeast Asia
Organisations: Save the Children, Terre des hommes, the International Detention Coalition & the Asia Pacific Refugee Rights Network
Dates: 24-25 May 2017
Location: Bangkok, Thailand

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

Course: Online course on Child Rights Governance
Organisation: Human Rights Education Associates
Dates: 31 May-11 July 2017
Location: Online

Seminar: Urban Planning and Children
Organisations: Child in the City Foundation & European Network Child Friendly Cities
Dates: 19-20 June 2017
Location: Rotterdam, Netherlands

Child abuse: ISPCAN European conference on child abuse & neglect
Organisation: International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect
Dates: 1-4 October 2017
Location: The Hague, Netherlands

EMPLOYMENT

Child Rights International Network: Executive Assistant
Application deadline: Rolling
Location: London

Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children: Coordinator
Application deadline: 23 May 2017
Location: London, United Kingdom

Consortium for Street Children: Research Manager
Application deadline: 23 May 2017
Location: London, United Kingdom

UNICEF: Consultant - Review of Adolescent Participation
Application deadline: 31 May 2017
Location: Negotiable

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