The week in children's rights - 1543

Child recruitment and ethnically-based massacres are taking place in the Kasai provinces of the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to a new UN report. The accounts of violence in the report are based on interviews with 96 refugees in neighbouring Angola. The report confirms that 251 people were victims of extrajudicial and targeted killings between 12 March and 19 June, including 62 children, of whom 30 were under the age of eight. Investigators met people who had been seriously injured or mutilated, including a seven-year-old who had had several fingers cut off and his face severely disfigured. Fighting began between the Kamuina Nsapu militia and the government in August 2016, and another militia, the Banu Mura, was formed around March. The Banu Mura were allegedly armed and supported by local leaders and security officials to attack the Luba and Lulua communities, which are accused of working with the Kamuina Nsapu. Luba and Lulua witnesses reported that the Banu Mura had carried out well-planned attacks on villages, beheading, mutilating and shooting victims, and in some cases burning them alive. Witnesses said that the Kamuina Nsapu are largely composed of children, many aged between seven and 13, while groups of girls called “Lamama” reportedly accompanied the militia, drinking victims’ blood as part of a ritual to render them invincible.

The UN mission in Mali has uncovered mass graves in a northern village, as well as evidence of forced disappearances, kidnapping and robbery. The mission confirmed the enforced disappearance of children who have been involved in the recent fighting, suggesting a “possible presence” of child soldiers among the ranks of both armed groups. Fighting between rival Tuareg factions, including the pro-government Platform group and the former rebels of the Coordination of Movements of Azawad group, has intensified in recent weeks, and attacks have continued against UN forces, civilians and the Malian army. The UN mission is the deadliest to date, with more than 100 peacekeepers killed in recent months. The conflict began in 2012 when jihadists and allied Tuareg rebels took control of the desert north. The escalating violence has led to a surge in attacks against aid workers, restricting delivery of food and healthcare to millions of people, with some agencies, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Medecins Sans Frontieres, temporarily suspending operations. According to UN data, more than 3.7 million people across Mali will need aid this year.

Hundreds of children in Ukraine have spent the summer at paramilitary training camps set up by the Azov volunteer battalion, a group notorious for its far-right views. Parents have sent their children to these summer camps in order to receive training in military techniques and physical exercise. The battalion, formerly part of the Ukrainian National Guard and currently operating as a de-facto private army, has set up a two-week paramilitary programme for children, instructing more than 850 children at seven camps across the country. In the midst of ongoing fighting between pro-Russia separatists and government troops in eastern Ukraine, which has left almost 10,000 people dead since 2014, the summer camp training is infused with nationalistic ideas, with camouflage-clad children spending their evenings chanting, chest-beating and flag-waving. Members of the Azov battalion have been accused by Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International of torture and “other egregious abuses” in the conflict zone. The group has strongly rejected accusations of having neo-Nazi leanings, despite sporting an emblem that resembles a symbol widely used by Nazi factions during World War II.

The United Kingdom has announced that it will set the minimum age at which children can use online services without needing parental consent at 13. The announcement came as part of a proposal for a new Data Protection Bill, which mirrors the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation, due to enter into force next year. The default for the regulation is to require parental consent for children under the age of 16 to use online services, but EU member states can set their own minimum age between 13 and 16. Ireland recently announced that it too would be setting its so-called ‘age of digital consent’ at 13. The UK’s proposals have, however, opened the government to criticism about its understanding of the concept of “privacy by default and design”, a principle key to the EU regulation. The term refers to ensuring that processes and systems involving people’s personal data are designed in a way that protects privacy, whereas the UK’s proposal mistakenly claims to realise the principle by requiring that citizens have a right to know when their personal data has been released contrary to data protection safeguards.

YouTube’s child protection mechanism is failing, according to volunteers responsible for monitoring and reporting child endangerment and grooming on the website. The company operates a system of volunteers, called Trusted Flaggers, who are able to report comments or accounts on the website to raise concerns about child exploitation. YouTube employees are then responsible for reviewing these complaints and acting in response. Trusted Flaggers who spoke to the BBC, however, have reported that there is a huge backlog of reports and that YouTube has responded to only a fraction of those in which children may be at risk. One volunteer, who made 9,000 complaints in December 2016, reported that none of them had so far been reviewed. The volunteer went on to say, ““[YouTube has] systematically failed to allocate the necessary resources, technology and labour to even do the minimum reviewing of reports of child predators in an adequate timeframe … There also seems to be an overall lack of understanding regarding predatory activity on the platform and that thousands of children are being targeted and manipulated.”

A class action has been filed in California, United States, alleging that Disney allowed technology companies to embed software in its apps to allow for the unlawful collection of children’s personal information. US law requires verifiable parental consent for the collection of personal information of children under the age of 13 and the complaint alleges that the company failed to meet this requirement. The lawsuit also alleges that children’s information is being sold to third-party companies for the purposes of tracking individual children’s behaviour across different apps and devices. The complaint relates to Disney’s online games played on smartphones, but also makes allegations against three other advertising technology companies who are claimed to have embedded software used to collect data within the games.