In this issue:
Latest news and reports
- Health
- Refugee and migrant children
- Child labour
- Custody and best interests
Upcoming events
Employment
LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Health
Brazil has been warned against adopting a new bill on the regulation of pesticides by a group of UN experts over fears it will weaken domestic rules on the use and oversight of experimental chemicals. The Special Rapporteurs (SRs) on the environment, the right to health, on safe drinking water and sanitation, on toxics and human rights, and on the right to food all wrote to the country’s legislature to express concerns that the bill could lead to destruction of the environment and have an impact on human health. The SRs also noted that some of the chemicals which could be authorised for use under weaker rules posed an "incalculable risk" to children in terms of their health and development. The experts reported that five of the ten most sold pesticides in the country, which is the largest consumer and importer of pesticides in the world, were banned in the European Union because of the potential danger to human health and the ecosystem. The SRs also explained that further weakening of pesticide regulations would lead the agricultural lobby to “easily control decisions” about which chemicals were safe to use, as power would also be taken away from the country’s health and environmental authorities under the proposed law.
A vaccine against dengue fever given to more than 800,000 school children in the Philippines has been found to increase the risk of hospitalisation and severe dengue fever in those who had never previously been infected with the mosquito-borne virus. An analysis of data on the vaccine, produced by pharmaceutical company Sanofi, this week reinforced the World Health Organization’s position that the vaccine should not be used without testing for prior dengue exposure. The study’s authors calculated that if given to one million children over the age of nine, the vaccine could prevent around 11,000 hospitalisations and 2,500 cases of severe dengue. However, the same sample size could also lead to 1,000 hospitalisations and 500 severe cases of dengue in children who were not previously infected. For previously exposed children aged nine and older, the vaccine reduced rates of severe disease and hospitalisation by 80 percent, whereas the control group in Sanofi's clinical trials, children aged two to five years old showed an increased risk of hospitalisation three years after receiving the vaccine.
Rights activists in Tanzania have called for children to be told earlier if they are infected with HIV or AIDS in order to help them understand the importance of consistently taking antiretroviral drugs. Executive Director for the Centre of Women and Children Development, Hindu Mbwego, noted that under current rules it is strictly prohibited to tell a child their HIV status before they turn 14. “Most victims throw away the drugs as they do not know that they could help them,” she explained, adding that hiding the truth did not benefit children. Tanzania’s deputy health minister Dr Faustine Ndugulile responded, claiming that easy access to HIV testing, including for adolescents, was also a vital part of improving the health of those living with HIV. The government claims these tests will also be available to children without the need for parental permission.
Refugee and migrant children
Almost 2,000 children have been separated from their parents or legal guardians at the border between Mexico and the United States since a highly criticised "zero tolerance" immigration policy came into force. A US official told journalists this week that 1,995 children had been separated from adults who crossed the border without the correct documents between the 19 April and 31 May. All cases of undocumented entry are being referred for criminal prosecution under the "zero tolerance" policy announced by US Attorney General Jeff Sessions, and the separations are a consequence of this prosecution, as minors cannot be held with their parents or legal guardians. On top of domestic protests, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights last week said the practice "amounts to arbitrary and unlawful interference in family life, and is a serious violation of the rights of the child". Children have been held in cages at some facilities, with as many as 20 children left together in the same cell in some instances.
As European and North African countries attempt to curb illegal migration, more migrant children are being expelled to Niger, UNICEF has warned. The organisation said that since November 2017 more than 8,000 people from western Africa, including 2,000 children, were expelled from Algeria to Niger. An additional 900 asylum seekers and registered refugees from eastern African countries were transferred from Libya to Niger while their applications were being examined. Children being expelled in this way are at risk of becoming victims of trafficking, violence, abuse, exploitation and detention, according to UNICEF. Niger is currently facing a series of crisesincluding attacks from Boko Haram, which has driven people to try to leave. The country is also seeing an influx of refugees from Mali and Libya. However, neighbouring countries are increasingly meeting migrants and refugees with violence rather than offers of sanctuary, forcing many to return on short notice.
The European Committee of Social Rights has found that France is violating unaccompanied migrant and refugee children’s right to protectionby keeping them in immigration detention, delaying the appointment of guardians and by using bone testing to assess their age. The decision comes in response to a complaint filed by the European Committee for Home-Based Priority Action for the Child and the Family (EUROCEF) in 2015. EUROCEF alleged that France detained children, deprived them of access to education and healthcare and used “abusive age assessment”, including the inaccurate method of bone testing, which experts have noted is "prone to error". EUROCEF claimed that some children who presented themselves to authorities were subjected to a bone examination to determine their age, at the request of the public prosecutor, and are then placed in an administrative holding centre if their bone development led to them being considered adults. The Committee also found breaches of the European Social Charter as a result of French authorities allowing unaccompanied foreign children to live on the street when there was no space to detain them, and because of a lack of clarity over how the affected children could access an effective remedy.
Child labour
In the United States, a decade-long lawsuit filed in a California federal court against food companies Nestlé and Cargill has been allowed to continue after being dismissed in 2017. The plaintiffs allege they were trafficked from Mali as child slaves to work harvesting cocoa beans in Côte d’Ivoire, where they experienced forced labour, arbitrary detention and physical abuse. They also claim that the companies aided, abetted or failed to prevent the abuses they suffered as child slaves. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in 2017, finding that the plaintiffs could not sue over forced labour in Côte d'Ivoire when they could not prove that there was conduct by the companies in the US linked to wrongdoing overseas. However, the plaintiffs filed an appeal, arguing that the companies’ decisions to give the farmers money and technical support were made at the companies’ US headquarters and, therefore, the lawsuit had a sufficient link to the US. The plaintiffs also argue that Nestle and Cargill representatives visited the farms several times each year and knew the farmers used child slave labour. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeal has now allowed the lawsuit to proceed under the Alien Tort Statute.
Nearly 5,000 cases of child labour were found in Colombia during the past three months, including 350 involving children from Venezuela. While child labour rates have fallen in recent years, around 850,000 children aged five to 17 are estimated by the government to be working and not attending school full-time or at all. Of the 5,000 cases of child labour found, more than a third were uncovered by government mobile units on farms and streets, while under half were reported through a free telephone hotline, according to Colombia's child protection agency (ICBF). Under Colombian law, children under 15 are not allowed to work and no child can be employed in a hazardous job that poses a risk to health or life. About 672,000 Venezuelans have crossed into Colombia since 2015, according to Colombian authorities, with those migrating without passports and work visas being particularly vulnerable to labour exploitation.
Increasing numbers of Syrian children are being forced to work as poverty intensifies among the one million refugees living in Lebanon. The proportion of Syrian child refugees working in Lebanon has risen from four percent in 2014 to seven percent today, according to research by the Danish Refugee Council. Globally, conflict and disasters linked to natural events have driven more children into working in agriculture, which accounts for 71 percent of all child labour according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Tanya Chapuisat, spokeswoman for UNICEF, explained that Syrian families in Lebanon often had no choice but to send their children to work. “Families are at their breaking point when it comes to debt, and so to be able to get their basic needs they are sending kids to work,” she said. More than three quarters of the refugees in Lebanon are living below the poverty line and struggling to survive on less than US$4 per day. Less than half the Syrian children in Lebanon attend school.
Custody and best interests
Family courts in Australia must give children stuck in the middle of custody disputes a say in where they live, Queensland’s children’s rights watchdog has insisted. Chief Commissioner of the state’s Family and Child Commission, Cheryl Vardon, said: “It’s all very well to aim for shared care but that’s simply not appropriate if that means the child is going to be damaged further”. The declaration follows a recent enquiry into family law which said children’s safety is not being prioritised. The report by the Australian Law Reform Commission highlights concern about the “lack of respect and weight given to the views of the child” in custody disputes. The submission states: “While there is a benefit to the child having a meaningful relationship with both parents, this should not be placed above a child’s protection”. Currently, judges can appoint a children’s lawyer to present a child’s views, or order a report by a ‘family consultant’, but Vardon says children should be able to give their views directly, with the appropriate safeguards in place. Founder of the child protection charity Bravehearts, Hetty Johnston, said “The child’s rights need to outweigh the parents’ rights,” adding that “The evidence of the child should be the first priority".
The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has rejected a complaint regarding a child custody dispute in Poland between prospective adoptive parents and the child’s biological mother, finding that national courts have taken the child’s rights into account in their decision to return the child to the biological mother. In the case, the biological mother had agreed during her pregnancy to give up her child to the couple, but she changed her mind after the baby was born. The child has been in the care of the adoptive couple since birth in 2011, but Polish courts ordered the child’s removal from their care and to place him with his biological parents. The legal dispute between both parties is ongoing in Poland, but the adoptive couple complained to the European court alleging that the national courts’ decisions violated their right to respect for private and family life. The ECHR rejected the application, however, explaining that the rights of prospective adoptive parents could not override those of the child. While acknowledging the emotional distress that the domestic decisions had caused the adoptive couple, the ECHR found that the courts had consistently acted in the child’s best interests.
UPCOMING EVENTS
THE LAST WORD
"“If a parent left a child in a cage with no supervision with other five-year-olds, they’d be held accountable.”
— Director of migrant rights at the Women’s Refugee Commission, Michelle Brane, on the Trump administration’s policy of separating children from their parents.
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