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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS

Crisis in human rights funding

The only human rights body monitoring the entirety of the Americas is suffering a “severe financial crisis” that will hit hard its ability to fulfil its mandate and carry out basic functions. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) says the contracts of 40 percent of its personnel will expire in July, with little chance of receiving funds to renew them. It has also been forced to suspend its July and October sessions, which will directly impact the Commission’s capacity to process complaints alleging human rights violations, as it is during sessions that these are analysed and approved. The Commission fears that the cutbacks will lead to a greater procedural backlog to the point that it is incompatible with the right of access to justice.

At the root of the problem is the “structural, systematic” lack of regular funding the Commission suffers. For comparative purposes, the Commission points out that the Council of Europe earmarks 41.5 percent of its budget to human rights work, while the OAS designates just six percent of its budget to the IACHR. The regional body hopes that the Organisation of American States (OAS) will decide to radically increase regular funding to the IACHR during its next General Assembly in June, and urges States to commit to human rights “with deeds and not just words”.

Armed conflict and rehabilitation

The Government of Colombia and the FARC-EP, Colombia’s main armed opposition group, have come to an agreement relating to the release of all children under the age of 15 from the FARC’s ranks. The agreement stipulates that both parties will prepare a plan for the release of all other under-18s along with a comprehensive programme for their reintegration. According to a recent UNICEF report, between 2013 and 2015 the number of children killed or injured by landmines and unexploded ordnance halved while the number of displaced children dropped by 40 percent. It also found that an estimated 1,000 children were used or recruited by non-state armed groups during the conflict period, and over 230,000 children had been displaced. Peace talks to end the conflict, which has been ongoing for half a century, started more than three years ago.

Two of the missing Chibok schoolgirls have reportedly been found in Nigeria, making them the first to be rescued since their capture by Boko Haram militants two years ago. One of the girls was found carrying a baby by an army-backed vigilante group close to the border with Cameroon early last week, while another girl was freed a few days later. In all, 218 girls remain missing after their abduction from a secondary school in northeastern Nigeria in April 2014. Some media outlets immediately sprang on the story, giving the girls no time to recover from their ordeal, printing photos and trying to arrange interviews. The first girl to be found was also ushered into a meeting with Nigeria’s President Buhari, with some claiming that he had shown little regard for her mental health.

At least nine children have fallen victim to blasts from unexploded cluster munitions in Yemen after they were dropped in air strikes carried out by Saudi Arabia. These smaller submunitions are designed to scatter after a cluster bomb is dropped, spreading small bombs over a wide area. During a lull in the ongoing hostilities many internally displaced people returned home, only to find that their homes and fields had become minefields strewn with ordnance that did not detonate on impact. During field visits Amnesty International uncovered evidence of thousands of unexploded cluster bomb submunitions, all of which have the potential to explode and seriously injure or kill people in the vicinity. These small explosive devices are particularly dangerous for children, who frequently mistake small cylindrical bombs for cans, and spherical submunitions for balls.

Children as young as 10 could be trained in shooting, assembling assault rifles and conducting parachute jumps as part of a revival of Russia’s ‘Young Army’. The training, along with classes on military history and battlefield tactics, could be given to students due to an “acute demand for the growing sense of patriotism and service to the country”, according to one government spokesperson. Russia has seen a surge in nationalism since its invasions of Crimea and Ukraine, with costumes mimicking historical Russian military uniforms now being made available online for parents with young children.
 

Right to die

A draft law in India seeks to allow terminally ill children aged 16 and over to request the withdrawal of medical treatment with the intention of causing death. The bill, on which the government has sought comments, sets out a procedure for approving a decision to permit ‘passive euthanasia’ involving a panel of medical experts. Although ‘active euthanasia’ is not under consideration, the bill has drawn criticism from some quarters, because of concerns about children’s capacity to make such a decision. This question has also been dealt with elsewhere. For instance, Belgium was the first country to lift age restrictions on the so-called ‘right to die’ in 2014. Doctors who helped draft this law emphasised that children living with terminal illnesses often display great lucidity and that any decision to end a life is taken as a last resort with strict safeguards in place. Read more about minimum ages in relation to health issues in CRIN’s discussion paper ‘Age is arbitrary’.

A woman who endured 10 years of sexual abuse as a child was allowed to end her life under Dutch euthanasia laws. Doctors and psychiatrists approved the ‘termination of life order’ after concluding that the woman's post-traumatic stress disorder and physical health problems were incurable. The Dutch Euthanasia Commission, which documented the case, revealed that the woman in her 20s had suffered from mental health problems for 15 years, including anorexia, chronic depression, suicidal mood swings, self-harming and hallucinations, among others. She had been undergoing treatment and even showed signs of progress two years before her death in 2015. However, her psychiatrist eventually concluded that "there was no prospect or hope for her". The woman’s death has fuelled the ongoing debate on the ethics of euthanasia elsewhere, with some British MPs arguing that allowing a victim of sex abuse to die is equivalent to punishing the victim. Read about the barriers children face in accessing justice for complaints of sexual abuse in CRIN’s report ‘Rights, Remedies and Representation’.

In the United Kingdom the parents of a “profoundly neurologically disabled” two-year-old boy have struck out against a High Court judge’s decision to allow doctors to provide only palliative care. Specialists said the boy, who cannot be named, suffered from an incurable, but unidentified neurological disorder and that his condition was deteriorating. The boy’s parents, who have a five-year-old daughter with a similar condition, said the ruling “effectively condemns their son to death”. They expressed their belief that nurses mistook their son’s smiles for grimaces. However, the judge heard evidence that the boy suffered severe breathing problems and brain damage and that further invasive interventions would be distressing and have little or no therapeutic benefit. Management at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS foundation trust with responsibility for the boy’s care had asked the court to rule that limiting treatment to palliative care would be lawful and in the boy’s best interests. 
 

Health and environment

 
President of the Philippines Benigno Aquino has signed into law a new bill exclusively aimed at protecting children’s rights during emergency responses to severe natural events, representing the first law of its kind in Asia. Hit by an average of 20 typhoons every year, the country is one of the most disaster-prone in the world. The Children’s Emergency Relief and Protection Act requires a separate data collection to identify children and a more efficient system of restoring civil documents to improve family tracing for unaccompanied children. The law also requires increased surveillance against child trafficking and other forms of violence against children in the aftermath of disasters. Children will also be able to participate in disaster-risk reduction planning and post-disaster needs assessments.

Four teenagers in the United States have won a climate change lawsuit against the state of Massachusetts for not complying with its legal obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In 2012 hundreds of children petitioned the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to comply with the Global Warming Solutions Act (GWSA) and adopt rules reducing the state’s greenhouse gas emissions, but the petition was denied. As a direct result of the agency’s failure to issue the new set of rules, Massachusetts is not on track to meet its 2020 greenhouse gas reduction goal. A lawsuit against the state followed, and now the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court has ordered the DEP to “promulgate regulations that address multiple sources or categories of sources of greenhouse gas emissions, impose a limit on emissions that may be released … and set limits that decline on an annual basis.” This win follows two other recent landmark wins in youth-led lawsuits against the federal government and the state of Washington.

In northern Peru 92 children and three teachers were poisoned when a plane fumigating nearby fields sprayed a weed-killer too close to their school. The herbicide, believed to contain a chemical linked to an increased risk of developing cancer, was sprayed on sugar cane fields belonging to the Gloria group, one of the largest food and agriculture companies in Peru, and reportedly without a municipal permit. Parents complained to local prosecutors that their children began vomiting and fainting after inhaling the chemical, while others complained of stomach pains and headaches.
In related news, the UN Environment Assembly is currently taking place in Nairobi, Kenya. On 26 May, a side event on “The impact of childhood exposure to toxic chemicals on children’s rights” will be held between 13:00-14:30. View the Assembly’s calendar of events here.
 

Juvenile justice

In Iran, seven young people between the ages of 22 and 25 are believed to be at imminent risk of execution and reports have emerged that the some of those affected were children at the time they committed their offences. All of the inmates have been transferred to solitary confinement in Gohardasht Prison, a step that precedes execution. Executions in Iran have increased in recent years alongside a crackdown on campaigners against the death penalty. Human rights activist Nargis Mohammadi was sentenced to 16 years’ imprisonment last week for national security offences related to her campaigning. A spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights released a statement deploring the sentencing, branding it as “illustrative of an increasingly low tolerance for human rights advocacy in Iran”.

Half of all children detained in youth custody in England and Wales have experience of the care system, according to a new report published by the Penal Reform Trust. Children in care are six times more likely to be cautioned or convicted of an offence than other young people. Lord Laming, who chaired the independent review leading to the report, was critical of the way that children in care were drawn into the criminal justice system for challenging behaviour that, for children outside the care system, would usually be dealt with within the family and without the involvement of police or the courts. The report is released just two months after the Howard League reported that children’s homes are drawing children into the criminal justice system and called for more support to be given to children in care during their teenage years.

In the city of Andijon in Uzbekistan, parents have been issued letters from schools requiring them to enforce strict behaviour rules during the summer holidays. The letter requires parents to implement a 6pm curfew for children and guarantee that their children will not engage in a range of banned activities, including wandering the streets, going to arcades to play video games, attending Friday prayers or services during Eid, attending certain religious schools, working in bazaars, washing cars, or begging in the streets. Upon signing the letter issued by schools, parents accept legal liability for their children. To find out more about curfews and other related practices, read CRIN’s recent global report on status offences.

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MINIMUM AGES: Criminal responsibility

Following the launch of CRIN’s discussion paper on minimum ages, we will be providing weekly snippets of a children’s rights issue where age thresholds are applied. This week, we look at children’s the minimum age of criminal responsibility.

The minimum age of criminal responsibility (MACR) means the age below which a person cannot be charged with an offence and processed in the criminal justice system. However, in practice, the definition of the age of criminal responsibility is often blurred. This is because many States establish such an age, but then make exceptions e.g. for more serious crimes, or for situations where children are involved in these kinds of offences with adults. We need to move beyond the idea of minimum ages, protect children from the negative process of criminalisation, and separate it from the concept of responsibility. Any juvenile justice system should aim solely for rehabilitation, never retribution.

Read more on the issue on page 8 of CRIN’s discussion paper on minimum ages. The paper draws out some general principles and criteria to ensure consistent and adequate respect for children’s rights in setting such ages.
 

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UPCOMING EVENTS

Child rights: Free training courses for professionals in justice, care or detention
Organisation: CORAM Children’s Legal Centre
Dates: 8-30 June 2016
Location: Birmingham and London, UK

Americas: 158th IACHR extraordinary session
Organisation: Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
Dates: 6-10 June 2016
Location: Santiago, Chile

Justice: Juvenile justice in Europe - Past, present and future?
Organisation: University of Liverpool et al
Date: 26-27 May 2016
Location: Liverpool, United Kingdom

Child rights: Summer school on the rights of the child
Organisation: University of Nottingham
Application deadline: 1 June 2016
Event date: 27 June – 1 July 2016
Location: Nottingham, United Kingdom

Child rights: Summer school on children’s rights
Organisation: Leiden University
Application deadline: 1 June 2016
Court date: 11-15 July 2016
Location: Leiden and The Hague, Netherlands

Investment: Why Europe needs to invest in children
Organisation: Eurochild
Date: 5-7 July 2016
Location: Brussels, Belgium

Statelessness: StatelessKids Youth Congress
Organisation: European Network on Statelessness
Dates: 11-13 July 2016
Location: Brussels, Belgium

South Asia: Submissions for journal - ‘Institutionalised Children: Explorations and Beyond’
Organisation: Udayan Care
Abstract deadline: 15 July 2016

Digital rights: Children & young people's rights in the digital age pre-conference
Organisation: Int’l Association for Media & Communication Research
Event date: 26-27 July 2016
Location: London, United Kingdom

Violence: 21st ISPCAN International Congress on Child Abuse and Neglect
Organisation: International Society for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (ISPCAN)
Dates: 28-31 August 2016
Location: Calgary, Canada

Participation: Young Citizens & Society: Fostering Civic Participation
Organisation: University of Strathclyde
Dates: 2-3 September 2016
Location: Glasgow, Scotland

Alternative care: International alternative care conference
Organisation: University of Geneva and Institut de droits l’enfant
Event dates: 3-5 October 2016
Location: Geneva, Switzerland

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EMPLOYMENT

CRIN: Web Manager and IT Support
Location: London, United Kingdom
Application deadline: Until filled

Oak Foundation: Director of the Child Abuse Programme
Application deadline: 31 May 2016
Location: Geneva, Switzerland

Council of Europe: Policy Adviser (child rights)
Application deadline: 24 June 2016
Location: Strasbourg, France

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JARGON OF THE WEEK

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