In this issue:
Latest news and reports
- Political rights and freedoms
- Bodily integrity and health
- Refugees and displacement
- Corporal punishment
Upcoming events
Employment
LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Political rights and freedoms
High school students in the United States are taking hold of the gun debate and demanding that lawmakers tighten gun control legislation in the wake of the recent Florida school shooting which left 17 people dead. The youth-led anti-gun movement is organising national school walkouts and marches in Washington DC "to protest Congress' inaction to do more than tweet thoughts and prayers". Students from Douglas High School, where the latest attack occurred, are demanding “that a comprehensive and effective bill be immediately brought before Congress" to address gun control issues and prioritise children’s lives. One student added that the aim is to "create a new normal where there's a badge of shame" on politicians accepting donations from gun lobbyists. Describing the status quo, Connecticut high school student Lane Murdock, who created an online petition for a national student movement, said: "Gun violence surrounds us. I remember my first lockdown drill as a normal thing... It hurts that a shooter can go into a school [and] kill little kids, and adults just let it fade into the background like white noise”. Another student, drawing on the #MeToo hashtag, proposed a twist exposing students’ and parents’ gun violence fears with #MeNext?
At the end of January the parliament of Malta approved the second reading of a bill that seeks to amend the constitution to lower the voting age in general elections and Member of European Parliament elections from 18 to 16. During the session, Parliamentary Secretary for Reforms Julia Farrugia Portelli said: "They [young people] have opinions on local and European politics, and should have a say at issues that directly affect them such as employment, the environment, infrastructure, and health”. Sixteen and 17-year-olds have been able to vote in local elections in Malta since 2016. But the new bill will, if finally approved, make Malta only the second country in Europe, after Austria, to allow under-18s to vote in general elections. The new bill will now move to a second committee stage before the third reading, which will be followed by a final vote. A small number of countries worldwide also allow under-18s to vote - here is the existing list.
Bodily integrity and health
Four political parties in Iceland have proposed a law that would ban the non-therapeutic circumcision of boys under the age of 18. The reform follows a recommendation from the children’s ombudspersons of five Nordic countries in 2013, which called the circumcision of boys without the capacity to consent and without medical justification a violation of children’s rights. Religious groups have been critical of the proposal, claiming that it undermines their right to freedom of religion, but Silja Dögg Gunnarsdóttir, who is among the lawmakers proposing the bill, has challenged this reasoning. “Of course I speak for religious freedom but I think you can’t take the rights of another person [to protect] your own rights to believe”, said Gunnarsdóttir. “I use the slogan ‘his body, his choice’, I think that sums it up”. If passed, the bill would make Iceland the first State to ban the non-medical circumcision of boys.
In the first case of its kind in Japan, a woman has filed a complaint against the government claiming that it violated her rights by forcibly sterilising herwhen she was a teenager. The woman, who is now 60, alleges that she was forcibly sterilised after she was diagnosed with an intellectual disability when she was 15 years old. Complications following the surgery resulted in the woman having her ovaries removed. The case may trigger widespread litigation on behalf of the estimated 25,000 people who were sterilised between 1948 and 1996 under the now defunct Eugenics Protection Law. The law allowed the sterilisation of people with mental disabilities or genetic illnesses, and during the period as many as 16,500 are believed to have undergone the surgery without their consent. The complaint calls for the government to establish measures to compensate people subjected to this surgery and 11 million yen (US$102,630) in compensation for the woman at the centre of the case.
Low immunisation rates have caused a sharp rise in cases of measlesacross Europe, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Reported cases rose fourfold across the region in 2017, with fifteen countries experiencing large outbreaks. Romania is experiencing its worst measles outbreak in decades, partly as a result of a shortage of the vaccine and poor healthcare facilities, while Roma children, who are disproportionately affected by poverty, are particularly at risk of the contracting the virus. Italy, which recorded more than 5,000 cases of measles in 2017, has responded by requiring mandatory vaccinations against 12 common illnesses for all children enrolling in state-run schools. The WHO recommends that 95 percent of the population should be immunised to prevent outbreaks. Dr Zsusanna Jakab, a spokesperson for the organisation, called for renewed focus to ensure immunisation: "This short-term setback cannot deter us from our commitment to be the generation that frees our children from these diseases once and for all".
Refugees and displacement
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has called for a European Union-wide ban on immigration detention for children, claiming that its use under any circumstances is “misguided”. EU law currently stipulates that migrant and asylum-seeking children may be placed in detention as a last resort, if it is in their best interests. Renate Winter, Chair of the CRC, stressed that detaining children was never in their best interests and that detaining them in such a setting would constitute a violation of international children’s rights law. “There can be no exceptions to this principle,” Winter said. “All EU Member States have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, and there should be no provisions in EU law that allow for practices that violate EU Member States’ international obligations”. The Committee further emphasised that irregular entry or stay should not be equated with the commission of crimes. According to the Committee, although the possibility of detaining children as a last resort exists in criminal law, it does not apply to immigration proceedings as that would never be in the best interests of the child.
The UN has warned that ongoing fighting in northeastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which has already forced tens of thousands to seek shelter in neighbouring Uganda "may spread further". More than 22,000 people fled clashes between rival ethnic groups in Ituri province last week, according to the UN refugee agency, with the majority of the displaced being heavily traumatised women and children. The recent violence marked a dramatic increase in the number of people crossing Lake Albert to reach Uganda in search of safety, bringing the overall figure since the start of the year to 34,000 displaced people. The violence has seen rival militias burn down more than 70 villages, looting health centres and ransacking schools, depriving 30,000 children of access to education. UNICEF has highlighted that among those who have fled the violence are more than 46,000 children.
Gaps in data covering refugees, asylum seekers, migrants and internally displaced people are endangering the lives and wellbeing of millions of children, UN and partner agencies have warned. Their finding confirms alarming holes in the availability, reliability, timeliness and accessibility of data that is essential for understanding how migration and displacement affects children and their families. In the absence of reliable data, the risks and vulnerabilities facing children on the move remain hidden and unaddressed. In some contexts, children who cross borders irregularly may be held in detention alongside adults or prevented from accessing services that are essential for their health and development, including education and medical care. In 2016 more than 12 million children around the world were living as refugees or asylum seekers, while an estimated 23 million children were internally displaced, though the true number is likely to be significantly higher.
Corporal punishment
A new survey has shown that attitudes towards corporal punishment in Finland have increasingly shifted, leaving the practice less and less accepted by parents. Corporal punishment of children was outlawed in Finland in 1984 and since then parents have reduced the use of corporal punishment, though threatening violence has become more common, according to the survey. These findings were revealed after the country’s Central Union for Child Welfare carried out a study on Finns’ parenting attitudes and methods, also noting that Finns have a very negative attitude towards threats with violence and find it more harmful to children than some forms of physical violence. A number of States have also committed to three to five years of accelerated action to end violence against children. A new report on the progress of these countries, by the Global Initiative to End All Corporal Punishment of Children, has shown how prohibition of violence against children is progressing in these countries, with some having completely outlawed the practice and others having failed to prohibit corporal punishment in any settings.
Parents who use violence to punish their children in Sweden are too often avoiding the consequences, according to two high-profile rights advocates. In 1979, Sweden became the first country to ban corporal punishment of children, but Anna Karin Hildingson Boqvist, interim Ombudsperson for Children, and Anita Wickström, who led an inquiry on children's rights, argued in a newspaper article that Swedish law does not do enough to protect children from violence. The pair cited recent cases in which adults hit their children but did not face criminal sentences due to courts finding that the cases involved only “minor” acts of violence. In their opinion piece they urged the government to introduce new rules on child assault in the penal code which "focus on violence exercised by parents or caregivers”. Sweden’s coalition government is already looking into incorporating the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into domestic legislation, with an aim for it to come into force by the year 2020.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Training: Identifying and investigating cases of forced labour and human trafficking
Organisation: ITCILO
Application deadline: 28 February 2018
Dates: 9-13 April 2018
Location: Turin, Italy
Nominations: International Children’s Peace Prize 2018
Organisation: KidsRights
Nomination deadline: 1 March 2018
Location: Global
Education: Frontiers of Children's Rights in the Caribbean Spring School
Organisation: Leiden University and University of Curaçao
Application deadline: 1 February 2018
Dates: 5-9 March 2018
Location: Willemstad, Curaçao
Conference: Deprivation of Liberty of Children in the Justice System
Organisation: Leiden University
Date: 13 April 2018
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
Conference: Genital Autonomy and Children's Rights
Organisation: Genital Autonomy - America
Dates: 4-6 May 2018
Location: San Francisco, United States
Demonstration: WorldWide Day of Genital Autonomy
Organisation: Genital Autonomy - America
Date: 7 May 2018
Location: San Francisco, United States
Call for papers: Shared Parenting, Social Justice and Children´s Rights
Organisation: International Council on Shared Parenting
Submission deadline: 15 May 2018
Location: Strasbourg, France
Justice for children: World Congress
Organisation: Terres des hommes et al.
Dates: 28-30 May 2018
Location: Paris, France
Conference: International Refugee Rights
Organisation: Canadian Council for Refugees
Dates: 7-9 June 2018
Location: Toronto, Canada
Education: International Children’s Rights
Organisation: Leiden University
Application deadline: 1 April 2018 (non-EU) / 15 June 2018 (EU students)
Dates: September 2018 - Summer 2019
Location: Leiden, The Netherlands
Conference: Contemporary Childhood - Children in Space, Place and Time
Organisation: University of Strathclyde
Application deadline: 27 August 2018
Dates: 6-7 September 2018
Location: Glasgow, United Kingdom
EMPLOYMENT
THE LAST WORD
"School safety is not a political issue. There cannot be two sides to doing everything in our power to ensure the lives and futures of children who are at risk of dying when they should be learning, playing, and growing. [...] No special interest group, no political agenda is more critical than timely passage of legislation to effectively address the gun violence issues that are rampant in our country.”
-- Extract from the March for Our Lives mission statement
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