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LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
 

State violence

An open letter criticising the actions of UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon has been published by a coalition of human rights groups after Saudi Arabia was removed from an annual blacklist of children’s rights abusers. According to top UN officials this sudden change of heart was due to Saudi Arabia threatening to leave the UN, withdrawing all funding as it went. The military coalition led by Saudi Arabia in Yemen was put on the annual list, which highlights States and armed groups responsible for grave violations of children’s rights in conflict, after it was confirmed that hundreds of children had died during their air strikes. The UN’s findings were criticised by the Saudi coalition, which has claimed that the report was largely based on information from their enemies in Yemen, further noting that the Houthi rebels they are fighting against have been on the same list for similar breaches of human rights for the last five years. Israel was included in the draft of the blacklist last year, but was removed after diplomatic pressure from Israel and the US. The NGOs which signed the letter, including CRIN, agreed that even allowing Saudi Arabia a review sets a damaging precedent and undermines the list’s credibility.

To read the full letter, click here.

An Irish man arrested at 17 remains in jail in Egypt, expecting a death sentence for alleged involvement in a 2013 protest. Initially arrested along with his three sisters, Ibrahim Halawa was denied medical attention for a gunshot wound to his hand, beaten by police and refused access to a lawyer after he was detained.  His case has been followed by Reprieve, an organisation campaigning against the death penalty, which has corresponded with him to learn the details of neglect and torture perpetrated by prison guards. Halawa claims he has been beaten, locked in solitary confinement and threatened at the barrel of a gun during his time in prison. As his sentence is being decided as part of a mass trial, including 493 other defendants, he has not yet been allowed to speak in court or offer evidence in his own defence.

Serbian children and adults with mental disabilities are being held in conditions equivalent to torture, according to the Mental Disability Rights Initiative of Serbia. A new report from the NGO documents how, nearly a decade after they raised concerns about living conditions in an institution in the town of Veternik, a young man burned to death after being locked in an isolation room. They warned that many children remain locked away inside institutions across the country with overcrowding, lack of staff and a failure to separate adults and children compounding the problems faced by people with mental disabilities. Their findings are reinforced by a report released by Human Rights Watch today, which highlights conditions that are “discriminatory, inhumane, and degrading” for adults and children living in Serbian institutions.

Oversight and negligence

A senior UN official has announced his resignation in protest over the UN’s failure to hold senior officials to account. Anders Kompass, who exposed the sexual abuse of children by French and African peacekeepers in Central African Republic, said: “The complete impunity for those who have been found to have, in various degrees, abused their authority, together with the unwillingness of the hierarchy to express any regrets for the way they acted towards me sadly confirms that lack of accountability is entrenched in the United Nations”. Kompass, field operations director at the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, passed a confidential internal report on the abuse to the French authorities in 2014 after the UN failed to act. Children interviewed for the report disclosed that they were sexually exploited in exchange for food and money. However, the UN appeared to be more concerned with investigating how information was leaked than ensuring accountability and assistance for victims. It condemned Kompass’ “misconduct” and suspended him from his job. An independent panel later found senior UN officials had “abused their authority” in the handling of the scandal. Read more about sexual abuse and the UN.

Human Rights Watch has issued a report calling on delegates at the International Labour Conference 2016 to develop a binding, international convention to protect human rights in global supply chains. Governments, employers, and workers from around the world are meeting in Geneva for the annual labour summit, and today celebrated the World Day Against Child Labour, with the theme 'End child labour in supply chains - it's everyone's business'. The report, Human Rights in Supply Chains: A Call for a Binding Global Standard on Due Diligence, draws upon two decades of research on child labour and other labour rights abuses, environmental damage, and violations of the rights to health, land, food, and water, in the context of global supply chains. “Millions of people around the world suffer human rights abuses because of businesses’ poor practices and lax government regulation,” according to Juliane Kippenberg, associate children’s rights director at Human Rights Watch. “Legally binding rules are the only realistic way to ensure that companies don’t exploit workers or contribute to labor abuses.”

The Pope has signed a new universal law for the Catholic church stipulating that a bishop can be removed from office for negligence in responding to clerical sexual abuse. The law also empowers several parts of the Vatican to investigate bishops and initiate processes of removal, subject to final papal approval. The Vatican and church officials have long worked to protect bishops from justice even in the face of irrefutable evidence of negligence. However, the US-based Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said in a statement they were "highly skeptical" of the new law. "A 'process' isn’t needed," said the group. "Discipline is what’s needed. A 'process' doesn’t protect kids. Action protects kids. A 'process' is helpful only if it’s used often enough to deter wrongdoing. We doubt this one will be." Read about how survivors of child sexual abuse in religious institutions have secured access to justice in CRIN’s bank of case law on the issue. Details of further court cases can be found in our report mapping the global scale of child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church.

Discrimination

Unaccompanied migrant and refugee children in Greece are being left "traumatised and distressed" by detention according to the UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights of migrants. Francois Crepeau called on Greece to end the imprisonment of children, some of whom are locked up in police cells for weeks, and to develop child protection services instead. More than a million people have arrived in Europe through Greece since last year, with 38 percent of the 150,000 who have arrived so far in 2016 being children. While UNICEF has committed to increasing its support for migrants and refugees in the country those working to shelter people crossing the border in military-run accommodation have said that living conditions were “not fit for animals”, let alone people fleeing conflict. Reports from inside the camps have claimed that as well as lacking special provisions for children and currently having no translators some of the camps also lack running water or medical facilities.

The Interior Ministry of Tajikistan has reportedly begun investigating claims that police arrested and abused children during the celebration of the Hindu festival of Holi. Reports on social media, including a 16-minute recording from inside a police station, indicated that as many as 200 people were arrested with some subjected to violence and humiliation at the hands of police. Several days later the Ministry reported that four police officers had been punished for mistreating people attending the festival, admitting that 48 people, 31 of whom were children, had been detained by police. Tajikistan’s NGO Coalition Against Torture has said that it will represent anyone abused by police during the incident in the courts, and urged them to file an official complaint.

Allegations of ‘Armenophobia’ have been levelled at Azerbaijan over the detention of an eight-year-old boy, on the basis that he had an Armenian-sounding name. The child was detained for ten hours at Baku airport despite both of his parents being Russian citizens and without any indication that he had broken rules or regulations related to travel. The border between the two countries has been disputed since the late 1980s and recent violence, including both sides accusing the other of shelling their positions last month, has caused relations to become increasingly strained.

Radicalisation and counter-terrorism

The European Commission is setting aside €400 million from its Erasmus+ programme to tackle Islamic ‘radicalisation’ in schools. It will use the programme to create links between schools and teachers across the EU to promote critical thinking and democratic values in primary and secondary schools and will promote youth volunteering as a tool to tackle unemployment. Tibor Navracsics, European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport explained that with up to €400 million “we can open a new chapter in Erasmus+ for organising conferences, workshops, for sharing best practices and mobilising those stakeholders at local level who can serve as a role model for local communities.” Tackling violent radicalism remains high on the EU’s agenda, particularly after the recent attacks in Brussels and Paris. For CRIN’s view on ‘radicalisation’ read our piece on extreme language here.

Critics have slammed Poland’s new Terrorism Bill claiming that it would lead to extreme violations of people’s rights. The Polish Helsinki Foundation claims the proposed law is ignoring legal precedents established by national and European courts and that the bill has not been open for public debate. The foundation criticises the bill's definition of "a terroristic act", for focusing on the extremism of only one religious group and for allowing foreigners to be subject to surveillance by law enforcement agencies for up to three months without requiring court permission. Furthermore, it also notes that a proposal to block websites is contrary to standards in the case law of the European Court of Human Rights regarding freedom of speech and that the bill introduces huge legal limitations regarding privacy by giving the Internal Security Agency (ABW) access to registries and databases gathered by other government agencies, ranging from agriculture and finance, down to local authorities.

A new legal duty imposed on academics in the United Kingdom to report signs of radicalisation is making students too afraid to ask questions in chemistry classes in case they are accused of bomb plots, college and university lecturers have warned. Educators have also claimed that the UK government’s anti-radicalisation programme is encouraging students to remain silent and actually makes them more vulnerable as targets of radicalisation. Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU) warned lecturers fear being in a position where they are no longer trusted by their students and so radical ideas that might previously have been expressed go unchallenged. She also noted that lecturers have experienced a sense of discomfort among students when it comes to talking about challenging subjects and that there are fears that students are being racially profiled or singled out because of their religion.

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MINIMUM AGES: Age of sexual consent

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 the minimum age of sexual consent.

The law should state an age below which children are not deemed capable of sexual consent. But the aim of a minimum legal age should be purely protective; it should not aim to control or criminalise children’s sexuality.

The legality of consensual sex between children should depend on the relative ages of those involved (allowing close-in-age exemptions), the power dynamics, and the kind of sexual activity prohibited. Moreover, sex education for children is vital for ensuring relationships based on respect and consent. And access to sexual and reproductive health advice, which is appropriate to a child’s age and circumstances, should be available to all children.

The enforcement of sexual consent laws should not run counter to children's rights, for instance, by denying their evolving capacities, establishing different ages of consent according to gender or sexuality, or applying the law inconsistently, for example with a racial or gender bias.

Read more on the issue on page 19 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

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

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

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LEAK OF THE WEEK

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