The week in children's rights - 1567

Campaigners and lawmakers in Guatemala have praised a new law aimed at curbing sexual abuse of children. The new legislation will create a national DNA database and sex offender registry and requires people working with children to provide a certificate proving they have no previous convictions for sexual crimes. Ten cases of child sex abuse are reported every day in the Central American country, often at the hands of family members or friends. In the few weeks since the new rules came into effect, more than 223,000 certificates have reportedly been issued, while more than 30 school teachers and other staff who had been convicted for child sex abuse were found to have been working at schools. According to a 2009 report by the UN commission against impunity in Guatemala nearly 90 percent of crimes against children go unpunished, while the pervasive problem of child sexual abuse has also resulted in a high rate of teenage pregnancies.

A former doctor for the United States’ Olympic gymnastics team has been sentenced to 175 years in jail for sexually abusing a huge number of the children in his care. A total of 156 victims spoke at Larry Nassar’s sentencing, resulting in seven days of the trial being dedicated to victim impact statements. Nassar had pleaded guilty to seven counts of criminal sexual conduct in Ingham County, Michigan and admitted to using his trusted medical position to assault and molest girls under the guise of medical treatment. In 2015, USA Gymnastics, the sport's governing body, quietly cut ties with Nassar over the abuse allegations, and an investigation in 2014 resulted in a three-month suspension from Michigan State University (MSU), where he coached. However, he continued to see patients until he was publicly accused in a 2016 report by the Indianapolis Star newspaper. In the wake of the case, the entire USA Gymnastics board will resign. The United States Olympic Committee said it would hold an independent investigation into “how an abuse of this proportion could have gone undetected for so long".
 

There are 21 million “unwanted” girls in India due to parents preferring sons to daughters, new government figures reveal. Released as part of the country’s annual economic survey, the 2017-2018 edition analysed birth rates and the sex of last-born children, concluding that many parents keep having children until they have a boy. The survey found that “families where a son is born are more likely to stop having children than families where a girl is born”. The desire for sons has given rise to sex-selective abortions and better nutrition and medical care for boys, with girls suffering disproportionately from poor education, disease, neglect, or inadequate nutrition. This has led to a skewed ratio of men to women. The study says there are economic and cultural reasons that explain the preference for boys, including property being inherited by sons not daughters (though this is not enshrined in law), a bride’s family paying a dowry, and daughters moving to their husband’s house. Many women - including educated and wealthy women - say they face immense pressure, most often from mothers-in-law, to have sons.

People aged 16 and 17 in Wales could soon have the right to vote in local council elections if Welsh Government plans to modernise the system are approved. If passed by the Welsh Assembly, over-16s will be able to vote in Wales’ next local authority elections in May 2022. "I would like to see us moving the franchise to enable younger people to take part in the democratic process," said Local Government Cabinet Secretary Alun Davies. Under the proposals, citizens from other countries "living legally in Wales" and who pay taxes would also have the right to vote in local elections. But the reforms would not apply to the United Kingdom general elections or the Welsh Assembly elections. Currently, Scotland is the only region within the UK where over-16s can vote in both local and parliament elections. The UK government recently said it had no plans to lower the national voting age. The Electoral Reform Society (ERS) said the UK government should lower the minimum age to vote for national polls. "[D]espite being the first to have received citizenship education, they are being denied their full rights as citizens,” said Darren Hughes, Chief Executive of the ERS. Read why denying voting rights to under-18s is age discrimination.

A children’s book titled “My Rainbow Family” is the first for young readers in Croatia to feature same-sex families in the staunchly Catholic country. The picture book, created for kindergarten-age children, describes the day-to-day life of two four-year-olds: Ana, who has two fathers, and Roko with his two mothers. "Ana likes it when her dads read her a good night story," states one caption. Another reads: "Some find Roko's family unusual at first. But that doesn't bother Roko since both of his mums love to make him banana pancakes, which he adores." Daniel Martinovic, of Rainbow Families, an association of LGBT people who have or plan to have children, launched the book earlier this month, explaining: "We made it for our children because we wanted them to be able to read about families like ours". Ahead of the book’s launch, a conservative group backed by the Catholic church called it “homosexual propaganda” and urged the education minister to ban the book, a request that was ultimately ignored. Five-hundred initial copies were published for distribution free of charge to those interested and an online edition is also available online in Croatian and English.
 

In Cameroon, the organisations Access Now and Internet Sans Frontières have intervened in a lawsuit challenging the government for shutting down internet access in the country’s English-speaking regions. The lawsuit demands that the government turn the internet back on and calls for the court to find that the shutdowns are a violation of the right to freedom of expression and access to information, and that they discriminate against people on the basis of language. Authorities blocked access to social media and messaging apps for almost four months in an attempt to quell criticism of the government, allegedly using security forces to end a school boycott protesters had organised in response to shutdowns. “Cameroon’s courts have the opportunity to set a global precedent in favour of human rights and the rule of law,” said Peter Micek, General Counsel of Access Now. “By declaring the government’s shutdown order a discriminatory, unnecessary, and disproportionate decree, issued under flawed procedures, the court can provide remedy to Cameroonians and light a path for victims of shutdowns elsewhere”.

A fifth of Palestinians have been arrested or investigated by either Israelior Palestinian authorities for sharing their opinions online, a new study has found. The report by the The Arab Centre for Social Media Advancement analysed various digital rights violations committed by the Israeli occupation, the Palestinian Authority, Hamas, and by private companies including Facebook, Google and PayPal. It found that the digital rights of Palestinians are being violated at an alarming rate, and that journalists and social media activists were most under threat of criminalisation. Omar Shakir, Human Rights Watch’s Israel-Palestine director, said traditional methods of repression used by the various actors were now also moving online. The report also cites the Palestinian Authority's Electronic Crimes Law, a draconian version of laws on policing the internet from the United Arab Emirates, which was introduced last year under the pretence of "protecting children” and has been criticised for attempting to silence online dissent.