The week in children's rights - 1578

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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

LGBTI rights

Portugal has passed a law banning unnecessary surgery on intersex infants and allowing children to choose their gender without medical or state intervention from the age of 16. The law makes Portugal the second country in the world, after Malta, to ban medically unnecessary surgery on the genitals of intersex infants, and the sixth European nation to allow a change of gender without requirements such as surgery or sterilisation. Surgery is sometimes performed on intersex babies, who are born with sex characteristics that do not match what is typically considered male or female, to modify their genitals so they appear more male or female. These irreversible procedures can cause lifelong pain, sterilisation, loss of sexual sensation and have a negative impact on mental health. Although the new law has been welcomed by bodily integrity advocates, some campaigners have pointed out that surgery may be carried out on a child with parental consent “if their gender identity is considered to be clear”, meaning that the law does not definitively protect all children's right to bodily autonomy and physical integrity.

Ukraine’s anti-discrimination ombudsperson has secured the removal of an anti-LGBT rights petition from the President’s official website. The petition called for “measures to be taken to stop propaganda of homosexuality and to defend family values”, two phrases which have been increasingly used by socially conservative groups when attacking LGBT rights. The petition reportedly called on the President to veto draft bills contrary to the position of churches on homosexuality and which could promote the legalisation of same-sex marriages or allow adoption by transgender people, calling adoption by same-sex couples “an act of violence” against the children involved. The ombudsperson explained the removal by noting that the demands in the petition ran counter to the country’s Constitution and the European Convention on Human Rights, were offensive and disrespectful, and contained elements of incitement to discrimination.

Refugees and migration

Detaining a family because of their immigration status violated their right to family life, the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) has ruled. The decision comes in relation to a case involving Russian parents and their three children, who were detained in Poland for almost six months at the Kętrzyn centre for foreigners. After arriving in Poland in 2012 the family’s asylum application was rejected, so they travelled to Germany — whose authorities returned the family to Poland in January 2014. It was then that the family was detained. They were released in June 2014 and eventually moved back to Germany. The family brought a case against the Polish state, claiming their detention was unlawful and violated their right to family life. The Strasbourg-based ECtHR reasoned that the family’s detention could be initially justified because there was a risk the family would abscond but it found the length of the detention prevented them from leading a family life. The court also found Polish authorities had failed to assess the impact of detention on the family, especially the children. It explained that children’s best interests in this case are not confined to keeping a family together; but includes limiting family detention as a measure of last resort.

Unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in the European Union can apply to be reunited with their families in the host country, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has said. The Luxembourg-based court said the policy applies even if a teen refugee reaches legal adulthood before the end of the process. The ruling relates to a case from the Netherlands in which authorities rejected an application by an Eritrean, who arrived in the country as a minor, for her family to obtain temporary residence permits. Since her paperwork was not submitted until after she turned 18, the application was rejected because she could no longer be considered an "unaccompanied minor". But the CJEU found the Dutch rejection breached EU law, saying it would otherwise be "entirely unforeseeable" for a minor to understand if they have the right to seek asylum for their families. Rather than place a strict age limit on applying for family reunification, the court ruled that applications should be made within three months of a minor obtaining refugee status.

Seven charities in Italy have accused border police in France of falsifying the birth dates of unaccompanied migrant children to try to pass them off as adults and send them back to Italy. In one case, a boy from Eritrea who was born on 1 October 2001 had his date of birth modified to 1 January 2000 by French police on his “refusal of entry” document. He arrived in Italy in June last year and was attempting to reach Sweden, where his brother lives. A source within the Italian border police said if there is doubt about a migrant’s age, then French authorities can refer to an Italian databank. “We identify people after they land, so we know if they are minors or adults”, the source said, adding that, “if the people are minors they have to take them, not send them back”. European Union law stipulates that unaccompanied minors seeking asylum in one Member State have the right to be transferred to another where they have family members. But the Italian charities also criticised Italy for failing to implement adequate procedures for family reunification, leaving many children stranded and with no choice but to attempt the dangerous journey by themselves.
 

Sexual abuse and accountability

A new UN report has put Myanmar’s armed forces on a blacklist of government and rebel groups “credibly suspected” of carrying out rapes and other acts of sexual violence in conflict for the first time. The UN Secretary General’s report to the Security Council documented how many of the almost 700,000 Rohingya Muslims who fled from Myanmar “bear the physical and psychological scars of brutal sexual assault”. The Secretary General said the assaults were allegedly perpetrated by Myanmar’s Armed Forces alongside local militias, carrying out “clearance” operations in October 2016 and August 2017. “Violence was visited upon women, including pregnant women, who are seen as custodians and propagators of ethnic identity, as well as on young children, who represent the future of the group,” Secretary General António Guterres said. The latest report puts 51 government, rebel and extremist groups on the list. The Secretary General noted that sexual violence continues to serve as a “push factor” for forced displacement in places such as Colombia, Iraq, the Horn of Africa and Syria.

Eight men have appeared in court accused of involvement in the rape and murder of an eight-year-old Muslim girl in India’s Jammu and Kashmir state. The girl, from a nomadic community that roams the forests of Kashmir, was drugged, held captive in a temple and repeatedly sexually assaulted before she was finally killed in January, police said. Public anger at the crime has led to protests in cities across India, with outrage fuelled by support for the accused initially shown by state government ministers from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Fifty former police chiefs, ambassadors and senior civil servants wrote to the Prime Minister, attacking his weak response, referring to the incidents as the country's "darkest hour".
 

Deprivation of liberty

Across detention centres in Libya, children are being held with adults in squalid conditions, questioned without lawyers and separated from parents, according to new research by the UN’s human rights office. The are an estimated 6,500 people held in official prisons, with thousands more detained in facilities directly run by armed groups. One facility houses 2,600 people who face torture, unlawful killing, denial of adequate medical treatment and poor detention conditions, often on the basis of tribal or family links and perceived political affiliations. The report alleges that many detainees are held in overcrowded conditions or subjected to solitary confinement for long periods of time in tiny cells, in conditions that amount to torture and other ill-treatment. Lack of respect for the rule of law coupled with the proliferation of weapons has also provided fertile ground for kidnappings. Armed groups and criminal gangs are known to abduct and hold victims, including children, to extort money from their relatives.

African migrants and asylum seekers in Yemen, including children, are being subjected to physical and sexual abuse in detention, the UN refugee agency and Human Rights Watch (HRW) have reported. As well as “torturing, raping and executing” migrants and asylum seekers from the Horn of Africa, HRW alleges that the government is also forcibly deporting them by sea. One detention centre in Aden held several hundred Ethiopian, Somali and Eritrean migrants, asylum seekers and refugees earlier this year, with about 90 migrants still believed to be held there as of this month. In a separate report the UN refugee agency also said it has received reports of the detention, abuse and forcible deportation of refugees, asylum seekers and migrants in Yemen, with survivors describing being shot at, adults and children being raped and summary executions of detainees taking place.

Iraqi women and children with suspected links to the so-called Islamic State group are reportedly being denied humanitarian aid and prevented from returning to their homes. New research from Amnesty International claims that women and children with perceived ties to the group are being punished for crimes they did not commit, with authorities in some areas issuing orders that block the return of women and children with perceived ties to the terrorist group. Even those who have made it home have reportedly faced evictions, forced displacement, looting, threats and abuse, including sexual abuse and sexual harassment. Children have also been blocked from attending school and denied access to food, water and health care because of their perceived affiliation, with a lack of access to new or replacement identity documents also creating further problems for displaced children.

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