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In this issue:
Latest news and reports
- Migrant and child detention
- Sexual and reproductive rights
- Violence against children
- Freedom of expression
Upcoming events
Employment
LATEST NEWS AND REPORTS
Migrant and child detention
A public inquiry has been launched in Australia after footage of children being beaten, stripped and sprayed with tear gas in a detention centre was broadcast on television. The programme included CCTV recordings of abuse carried out by adult guards at the Don Dale centre in the Northern Territory, including one boy being hooded and strapped to a chair by his limbs and neck. Since the programme aired, Corrections Minister, John Elferink, has been sacked, a police investigation has been launched and six former child detainees now intend to bring cases against the government over their treatment at the facility. Indigenous advocates, pointing to the fact that 96 percent of juveniles detainees in the territory are of indigenous descent, have called for the inquiry to directly investigate structural racism in Australia’s detention centres. This scandal also comes as the International Human Rights and Conflict Resolution Clinic at Stanford Law School published a warning that the staff at the Spanish company, Ferrovial, could be at risk of prosecution for crimes against humanity for their role in running Australian immigration detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. In the face of States’ attempts to address increasing migration and reports that the Australian model of immigration controls is being mooted as an model for European States, the report highlights the potentially serious consequences for those involved in offshore detention facilities.
In the United Kingdom a 14-year-old boy is suing London’s Metropolitan police and his local council over their failure to provide a safer alternative to detention in police cells. The boy was held on multiple occasions in March this year as no other accommodation was found for him, despite detention of children being acknowledged by the government as only acceptable as a measure of last resort. The case is being brought by Just For Kids Law as part of its initiative to prevent the detention of children as young as eight in unsuitable locations and could have a much wider impact for the 22,000 children held overnight in police cells every year. The inappropriate detention of children also hit the news this week due to the case of a girl arrested while at school in relation to claims that she had bullied another girl. A harassment charge against her was later dropped, but the case raises serious concerns that police have not been detaining children only as a last resort.
Greece has also come under fire for detaining unaccompanied asylum-seeking and other migrant children in police stations. During a Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigation, detained children described unsanitary, overcrowded cells and a lack of information, including counselling and legal aid. In one police station in northern Greece, children reported that a broken shower had flooded their cell and they had used their clothes to block the water. “Police cells are no place for children who have fled their countries, endured perilous journeys, and are all alone in Greece”, said Rebecca Riddell, Europe fellow at HRW. “Locking vulnerable children in cramped and dirty cells for weeks or months is never an acceptable alternative for kids who need and deserve care and protection.”
Sexual and reproductive rights
In the United States, Alaska’s Supreme Court has struck down a law which required doctors to inform the parents of any child seeking an abortion. While it was in force, the law applied to all unemancipated and unmarried children, requiring a 48-hour period between notification of parents and termination of the foetus. The court held that the law was unconstitutional, adding that judges were “not concerned with whether abortion is right, wrong, moral, or immoral, or with whether abortions should be available to minors without restriction,” as the Notification Law did not comply with Alaska’s constitutionally enshrined equal protection guarantee. The judgment comes after another important decision on reproductive rights in the US, with the nation’s Supreme Court ruling that Texas should not be able to impose undue restrictions on abortion clinics relating to staff privileges at nearby hospitals and whether or not they have facilities comparable to an same-day surgical centres.
Religious groups in Jamaica have been allowed to intervene in a case challenging the country’s sodomy laws, but the public defender’s office has been barred from making the same contribution. The challenge was filed by LGBT rights lawyer and activist Maurice Tomlinson and is supported by the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and AIDS-Free World. But nine church groups intervened, claiming that repealing the law would affect their freedom of religion, and that gay men needed to be banned from having sex to prevent the exploitation of children. LGBT rights are a divisive topic in Jamaica and the court’s reasoning stated that the public defender should not intervene in the issue, as taking a side would cause those who disagreed with her to lose confidence in the public defender’s office.
A message emphasising the importance of sexual education, accessibility of contraception and availability of safe abortions, has been released by the Council of Europe’s Human Rights Commissioner Nils Muižnieks. The statement calls on every member of the international body to enforce the rights of boys and girls to age-appropriate information on sex and relationships, singling out Lithuania, Romania and Russia as member states lacking such support in both primary and secondary schools. The Commissioner added that all nations within the Council of Europe should make lawful, at a minimum, abortions performed to preserve the physical and mental health of women, or in cases of fatal foetal abnormality, rape or incest.
The Commissioner’s statement also coincided with the end of the World AIDS Conference in Durban, South Africa, where 20,000 delegates from across the world discussed progress and challenges associated with efforts to eradicate the virus. Professor Jerry Coovadia highlighted in an interview that he was most impressed with the success in bringing down mother-to-child infection rates from about 30 percent of babies in the 1980s and 90s, to now, at just under two percent, but ended by warning the assembled advocates about the dangers of complacency.
Violence against children
More children were killed or injured in Afghanistan in the first half of this year than in any six-month period since 2009, according to the UN. A total of 1,601 civilians deaths were recorded among all ages between January and June, of which 388 were children. More than 1,120 children have died since the UN began keeping count in January 2009. The latest figures were collected in a report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. According to the report, while "anti-government elements" are responsible for 60 percent of casualties - which means primarily rival militant groups the Taliban and so-called Islamic State - 1,180 casualties are "attributable to pro-government forces" so far this year, which represents a 47 percent increase on the same period last year. Victims are caught up in ground battles, suicide attacks or hit by Improvised Explosive Devices. Children are also disproportionately affected by remnants of war, often by playing with unexploded ordnance. The report also documents the use of children in conflict, sexual violence against children, summary executions and attacks on health and education facilities, among other human rights violations.
Members of a Syrian rebel group receiving military support from western nations have been accused of beheading a boy after a video emerged online of the execution. The boy, believed to have been between 10 and 12 years old, was captured by Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement fighters who claim he was a spy. The group has since condemned the beheading of the child as a “violation” and claims the fighters in the video acted independently of the rebel group’s authority. The United States, one of the many western backers of Nour al-Din al-Zenki, said it would stop providing assistance if the allegations are proved. Earlier this month, Amnesty International published a report detailing human rights violations allegedly committed by Nour al-Din al-Zinki Movement fighters in Aleppo, including abductions and torture.
A seven-year-old boy from the Oroan tribe in India was left seriously injured after being shot by a park guard in Kaziranga national park, an area notorious for its “shoot to kill” policy targeting suspected poachers. According to the park’s internal documents, guards are encouraged to execute poachers on sight, with employment slogans including “must obey or get killed” and ”never allow any unauthorised entry (kill the unwanted).” This “militarised approach to conservation”, as Survival International describes it, has been heavily criticised as tribal people in the area have been shot for wandering over the park boundaries to retrieve cattle or collect firewood. Elsewhere in the world, local tribal people face arrest and beatings, torture and even death in the name of conservation. In Cameroon, Baka “Pygmy” people have repeatedly testified to beatings and torture at the hands of eco-guards, while in Botswana, Bushmen are criminalised when they hunt to feed their families, and face arrest and beatings.
A man who killed his newborn grandson in China because he was born with a cleft lip has been sentenced to seven years in jail, representing a tougher stance on infanticide compared with previous sentences. Although killing a newborn in China is categorised as homicide, sentences are often less severe than when the victim is an adult, according to local legal experts. In a country where poverty and a preference for boys are widespread, a judge considers the family’s motivation, their financial circumstances, and the health of the infant in cases of infanticide, according to Shanghai-based criminal lawyer Zhang Peihong. Discrepancies also exist depending on the motive behind the killing. For instance, while infanticide does not carry a separate charge, cases involving a child killed because it had birth defects - with surgery being unaffordable for some families - carry less severe sentences compared to killing a baby girl because of a preference for boys. Female infanticide usually carries sentences of over 10 years imprisonment, whereas a three-year sentence and even suspended sentences are common for other forms of infanticide.
Freedom of expression
Experts from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights are seeking information from civil society on the promotion of freedom of expression and the role of the media in connection with children’s rights. The Office of the Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression and the Rapporteurship on the Rights of the Child will use responses to their questionnaire to draft a thematic report on “Children’s Rights, Freedom of Expression, and the Media in the Americas”. The consultation process aims to gather information on the legal and regulatory frameworks for television, radio, and other media, as well information related to the promotion of freedom of expression and children’s and adolescents’ access to information through the media. States, civil society, and academic organisations from the region have until 9 September 2016 to have their say.
Joshua Wong, the face of the 2014 Hong Kong pro-democracy protests has been found guilty by a court of taking part in an unlawful assembly and faces up to two years in prison, along with two other student activists Nathan Law and Alex Chow. The three young men were arrested after climbing over a fence into the forecourt of a Hong Kong government complex on 26 September 2014, when they were under the age of 18. This sparked the mass street protests and sit-ins that became known as the Occupy Central movement. The movement called on Beijing to allow free elections through a democratic vote for the leader of the semi-autonomous Hong Kong, currently chosen by a 1,200-member election committee largely viewed as pro-Beijing. Wong and Law are now leaders of a new political party called Demosisto, however if they are imprisoned, it is likely that they will not be able to take part in elections to the Hong Kong legislature in September.
In India's Kashmir Valley, a curfew has been in place for over two weeks following clashes between young protesters and government troops in the wake of the killing of popular rebel leader Burhan Wani. So far, the unrest has claimed 43 lives and left thousands injured and schools in the area have been closed for weeks. Despite ongoing clashes, schools in four districts have been allowed to reopen, though schools in the other six districts of the Valley remain closed for the foreseeable future. As a result of the protests, law enforcement agencies also placed a ban on all media outlets from reporting in the region - a decision they defended as necessary to prevent any further violence. This move came under heavy criticism both nationally and internationally and the media ban was eventually lifted after five days.
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UPCOMING EVENTS
Children's rights in alternative care: Walk the Talk!
Organisation: SOS Children's Villages, Council of Europe, Eurochild
Registration deadline: 5 August 2016
Event date: 8-9 November 2016
Location: Paris, France
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
Foster care: International Foster Care 2016 European Conference
Organisation: International Foster Care Organisation
Dates: 1-4 September 2016
Location: Sheffield, UK
Advertising: Child rights based tools for protecting kids from alcohol marketing
Organisation: IOGT International
Dates: 2 September
Location: Bratislava, Slovakia
Participation: Young Citizens & Society: Fostering Civic Participation
Organisation: University of Strathclyde
Dates: 2-3 September 2016
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Changing Global Perceptions: Child Protection & Bodily Integrity
Organisation: Genital Autonomy
Dates: 14-16 September
Location: Keele, UK
Education: Achieving education for all and eliminating child labour
Organisation: The International Training Centre of the ILO
Dates: 25-30 September 2016
Location: Turin, Italy
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
Family separation: Exploring the Causes and Consequences of Children Separated From Their Families Across International Borders
Organisation: International Social Service
Event date: 13 October 2016
Location: Maryland, US
Education: Master of Advanced Studies in Children's Rights
Application deadline: 1 November 2016
Dates: February 2017 – November 2018
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Right to work: Eliminating child labour and promoting decent work in agriculture
Organisation:The International Training Centre of the ILO (ITCILO)
Dates: 14-18 November
Location: Turin, Italy
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EMPLOYMENT
Mental Disability Advocacy Centre: Project manager
Application deadline: 29 July 2016
Location: Budapest, Hungary
ActionAid: Privatisation in Education and Human Rights Consortium Coordinator
Application deadline: 1 August 2016
Location: Various
Coram: Project Management Officer
Application deadline: 1 August 2016
Location: London, UK
Coram: International Research Assistant
Application deadline: 5 August 2016
Location: London, UK
UNICEF: Corporate Alliances Manager
Application deadline: 11 August 2016
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
UNICEF: New and Emerging Talent Initiative (NETI)
Application deadline: 14 August 2016
Location: Various
Defence for Children International: Executive Director
Application deadline: 15 August 2016
Location: Geneva, Switzerland
Eurochild: Child Participation & Network Development Officer
Application deadline: 25 August 2016
Location: Brussels, Belgium
Consortium for Street Children: CEO
Application deadline: 4 September 2016
Location: London, United Kingdom
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JARGON OF THE WEEK: ** Extreme violence **
Children are exposed to many forms of violence, some, it would seem, more extreme than others. The term extreme violence is gradually being used at the international level as an umbrella term to refer to violence perpetrated by so-called “violent extremist groups” during armed conflicts. This violence includes killing and maiming, abduction, forced recruitment, and rape and sexual exploitation. Yet the term contains several deficiencies.
Firstly, while extreme violence is clearly a variation of wording used in the terms “violent extremism” and “extremist violence”, it does not have a generally accepted definition, so its meaning remains elusive, which leads to it being used arbitrarily.
Secondly, the term gives a name to violence that is perpetrated specifically by “violent extremist groups”, despite the individual forms of violence committed already having names, suggesting that rape, for instance, by an armed group is different from rape by anyone else. This denies the fact that violence against children is exactly that, regardless of the perpetrator.
And thirdly, that the term categorises violence as extreme suggests that some forms of violence are more - or less - reprehensible than others. The law indeed treats violence by its degree of severity; but the use of adjectives like extreme, which are not standardised or legally recognised, means terminology risks being understood subjectively and used arbitrarily. What’s more, the issue raises the question that if certain violence is defined as extreme, what would constitute, say, mild violence? And are adjectives such as mild even defensible? In such circumstances, the prudent approach is to call things by their existing names.
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