In this issue:
Latest news and reports
- Civil, political and LGBT rights
- Violence and armed conflict
- Education and privacy
- Labour and exploitation
Upcoming events
Employment
LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Civil, political and LGBT rights
A schoolboy in Australia has lodged a complaint against the federal government’s exclusion of 50,000 16 and 17-year-olds from the country’s upcoming same-sex marriage postal survey. Cameron Warasta, 17, lodged a complaint with the Australian Human Rights Commission, which could escalate to a federal court case to overturn the government direction excluding Australians under 18. The complaint alleges that enroled 16 and 17-year-olds are technically on the electoral roll although they are not treated as such for the purposes of elections. The Electoral Act is exempted from the country’s Age Discrimination Act, but the Census and Statistics Act, which governs postal surveys, is not. Warasta is arguing that the government is treating enroled 16 and 17-year-olds less favourably than enroled adults, since the postal survey is not an election but rather a collection of statistical information conducted by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. The case will seek to contradict the Australian Electoral Commission’s position that 16 and 17-year-olds are “provisionally enroled” and therefore not eligible.
A software firm in France attempted to sell spyware to parents, claiming it could help them "find out whether or not [their] son is gay". The product was advertised on the website of spyware editor Fireworld, and was exposed by youth LGBT rights group L'Amicale des jeunes du Refuge. The webpage listed "clues to know if your son is gay" and incentives to hack children's Facebook accounts and to spy on their private correspondence. After public outrage, the company deleted the webpage, and argued that "the article had the sole aim of improving search engine optimisation and was never intended to be read by humans". Commentators indicate that the company's website, which is anonymous and does not provide any legal disclaimer, contravenes French law, as it is not legal to use advertising which incentivises the illegal use of spyware. The criminal code also forbids the sale or advertisement of surveillance devices without authorisation, or the installation of spying software on a person’s computer without their knowledge.
Lawmakers in Haiti have taken the first steps towards banning same-sex marriages and all forms of public demonstrations in support of LGBT rights. The legislation includes sanctions and specifies that “perpetrators, co-perpetrators, and accomplices” of same-sex marriages will face three years' imprisonment and a fine equivalent to nearly US$8,000, while those who engage in “any promotion, in any form or by any means” of LGBT rights will be committing “an offence of contempt of good morals and public decency”. While same-sex unions were never legal in Haiti, evangelical senators are said to have proposed the new law in the name of the “defence of the family”, a rallying cry which is increasingly used to justify abuses of children’s rights. Haitian LGBT rights organisation Kouraj asserts that the bill violates Haiti’s constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and expression. The proposed law will now be transferred to the lower house for debate before being sent to the executive for publication in the official newspaper. Read more about established principles relating to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Uganda’s government has set up a national committee “to ensure that the perpetrators of pornography are apprehended and prosecuted”, blaming sexual content for increases in drug abuse, incest, teenage pregnancy, homosexuality and statutory rape. In a statement the government declined to name the members of the panel, only revealing that they were Ugandans “of high moral character and proven integrity”. Plans to create such a committee were also mentioned in 2016, with claims that the government would purchase a US$88,000 machine from South Korea to scan mobile devices for illegal content, though details about the “censor gadget” have been few and far between. Ugandan LGBT activists have decried the formation of the committee, which took place in the same week that Uganda’s gay pride event was shut down, claiming it will only lead to further persecution of LGBT individuals in the country.
Violence and armed conflict
Hundreds of children were reported to be among the mourners attending the funeral of a boy recently killed by police in the Philippines, making the funeral march one of the largest protests against President Duterte’s ‘war on drugs’ to date. So far, three police officers have been suspended in relation to the killing of Kian Loyd delos Santos, amid claims that the 17-year-old was fatally shot during a ‘drug operation’. Forensic evidence revealed that he had been shot in the back of the head and through the ears while lying on the floor, and CCTV evidence from the night of his death shows him being dragged from near his home to the alley where he was killed. Presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella has stated that the killing was an "isolated" case, but the Children's Legal Rights and Development Center claims he is one of at least 54 children killed during Duterte's drug war. Nuns, priests and hundreds of children joined the funeral procession on 26 August, chanting “justice for Kian, justice for all”, before his body was buried.
Soldiers in Myanmar have been accused of shooting indiscriminately at, and carrying out arson attacks against, unarmed Rohingya men, women and children. Bangladeshi border guards have claimed that mortars and machine guns targeted fleeing Rohingya people, mostly women and children, who were trying to escape violent persecution in Myanmar. At least 100 people have died in recent fighting, and some 3,000 people have fled to Bangladesh amid the mounting violence. Satellite data accessed by Human Rights Watch also shows evidence of fires burning in at least 10 areas in Myanmar’s Rakhine state, following a military crackdown on the country's Rohingya Muslim population. The burnings follow a series of coordinated attacks by ethnic Rohingya militants on 25 August against dozens of Burmese government checkpoints and bases, though neither side has yet claimed responsibility for the blazes. There are hundreds of thousands of Rohingya refugees already living in Bangladesh, with 87,000 arriving since October 2016, following an attack by rebels which resulted in a major crackdown in Rakhine state.
A coalition of 57 NGOs has called for an independent inquiry into human rights abuses in Yemen, where a proxy war has killed thousands and fuelled a dire humanitarian crisis. The groups are calling on the UN Human Rights Council to investigate the alleged rights violations carried out by both sides of the conflict. The letter notes that as well as the targeting of schools, hospitals and residential buildings by airstrikes, around seven million people are on the brink of famine and hundreds of thousands are now suffering from cholera as a result of the conflict. Yemen has been wracked by violence since the war broke out in 2014, when Houthi rebels and their allies seized the capital, Sana’a, and forced the president into exile. The conflict escalated when a coalition led by Saudi Arabia intervened in 2015, and it is estimated that as many as one in three Saudi-led airstrikes have destroyed civilian targets. The UN’s list of countries that commit grave violations of children’s rights in conflict omitted Saudi Arabia last year, following Saudi threats to remove their share of UN funding, and the country’s diplomats are currently making frenzied efforts to ensure that they will not return to this year’s list.
Education and privacy
A student has been denied re-enrolment at a private Catholic school in Asunción, Paraguay, after the school received information from a credit company about their parents’ financial records. Informconf, a private company that maintains a database of commercial activities of half of Paraguay’s population, is reported to have provided information showing that the parents had been blacklisted because they had acted as guarantors on an unpaid loan, though the parents had never failed to pay school fees. The parents of the child reported the situation to the Ministry of Education, which agreed that the situation was discriminatory, but it was unable to take action because Catholic-run institutions are not under the Ministry’s jurisdiction. The case has raised concern in the country about the way that children’s data is being shared, with NGOs criticising the lack of national legislation to protect the way that citizen’s personal data can be shared.
Unions in India have condemned an agreement between public authorities in Andhra Pradesh and private education provider Bridge International Academies. The unions criticised plans for Bridge to take over 4,000 schools from the government and the closure of public schools claiming that it “undermines the right of all children, especially poor and unprivileged, to quality education”. They have called for immediate withdrawal from the agreement and the full implementation of India’s Right to Education Act. Civil society organisations have been widely critical of Bridge Academies, with 174 organisations signing a statement earlier this month calling on investors to cease support for the company. The statement claimed that the academies do not give the poorest and most marginalised children access to education and that the cost of studying is much higher than the company claims.
LGBT students in Japan are increasingly being outed by teachers, according to the All Japan Sexual Minorities Support Network. The network reports a rise in the number of students reaching out for support after teachers have provided details about their sexuality to parents, teachers or other students. Minako Hara, the director of the organisation, said that teachers are not necessarily being malicious by informing parents about children’s LGBT status, but are acting out of a lack of understanding. The Japanese Society of Gender Identity Disorder and the Japanese Society of Psychiatry and Neurology have both warned that outing LGBT students could lead to depression or suicide. A survey released earlier this year found that more than half of LGBT people in Japan reported being bullied at school while almost 70 percent of those bullied said that their teachers did not come to their aid.
Labour and exploitation
Thirty-three companies and three banks in Europe and North America that work with natural stone are importing granite from quarries in India which exploit workers and use child labour, according to a new NGO report. Commissioned by the India Committee of the Netherlands and Stop Child Labour, the new report shows that modern slavery, low wages, inadequate housing, and unsafe and unhealthy working conditions are widespread in granite quarries in Southern India. The research was conducted in 22 quarries and six waste stone processing sites in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Karnataka. It found child labour present in main quarry operations in seven of the sample quarries. Meanwhile nearly 80 percent of waste stone processing is done by women and children. Children below 14 years old account for nearly three percent of the waste stone processing workforce, with five percent of this workforce being between 15 and 18 years old. Half of all world exports of raw granite come from India, and Western government are an important end-buyer of granite for buildings, pavements, and public squares. Canada, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom are among the importing countries.
China’s online marketplace Taobao has removed vendors offering customised video and photo advertisements featuring children from African countries, following concerns about exploitation. In the videos the children shouted out promotional messages in Chinese, and in the photos they typically held up a board showing promotional slogans. These ads were a popular and inexpensive way to deliver messages for both individuals and companies. Mostly small businesses paid for the ads to promote their services online, some of which labelled these videos "charitable activity" on their page, alleging that most of the money goes to the children. However, “from the human rights perspective, probably one of the biggest risks is child labour," said William Nee, China researcher from Amnesty International. Vendors conflicted in their knowledge of whether the children are paid. A photographer contacted by the Beijing Youth Daily, however, said that the children only received snacks or a few dollars as reward. Meanwhile videographers received around HK$110 per video, which were then sold on Taobao by a vendor for double the cost of production, according to Hong Kong Free Press.
Almost one in five young women and girls in Kyrgyzstan are kidnapped for marriage, according to a new study, which also found that psychological distress is leading them to have smaller-than-average babies. Bride kidnapping involves a potential groom abducting a young woman or girl and taking her to his home before pressuring her to agree to marriage by writing a letter of consent and wearing a “marriage scarf” over her head. In many cases, the groom will rape the victim to prevent her from returning to her family due to shame, according to the UN Population Fund. The practice has been illegal in the country since 2013, but it is common in rural areas. The study, published in the journal Demography, said it is unclear why babies born out of these circumstances are smaller, but it is likely due to the psychological trauma suffered by the mother from being in a forced marriage. Usually smaller birth weights have been linked to a higher risk of disease, lower education rates and earnings, it said. The practice of bride kidnapping also exists in Armenia, Ethiopia, Kazakhstan and South Africa.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Witchcraft and Human Rights: Expert Workshop
Organisation: The Witchcraft and Human Rights Information Network
Dates: 21-22 September 2017
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
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
Date: 9-11 October 2017
EMPLOYMENT
GIESCR: Human rights and social services campaigner
Application deadline: 13 September 2017
Location: Negotiable
THE LAST WORD
"The victims of abuses in Yemen cannot afford to wait longer for credible investigations into ongoing grave violations and abuses to be undertaken. We therefore call on the Human Rights Council to establish, during its thirty-sixth session, an independent international inquiry to investigate alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law committed by all parties to the conflict in Yemen.
"The inquiry should be given the mandate to establish the facts and circumstances, and to collect and preserve evidence of, and clarify responsibility for, alleged violations and abuses of international human rights law and violations of international humanitarian law, with a view to ending impunity and providing accountability."
-- Joint NGO letter to the Human Rights Council calling for an Independent International Inquiry on Yemen.
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