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Summary: Gerison Lansdown, international child rights advocate, gives tips and strategies for implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). Below you can find a list of these strategies and a question and answer session which was held on the final day of the Middle East and North Africa regional consultation on children and the new Convention, held in Sana’a, Yemen in October 2007.
To undertake effective advocacy, you need to be clear about: Strategies for implementing the Convention Understand the situation on the ground: Assess and build the capacity for implementation Network and build alliances Campaign for ratification Advocate for the rights of children with disabilities Raise public awareness Monitoring and evaluation Actions to consider: In Brazil, the legislation could not be better on paper, but children are still shot in the street, there are still children who do not go to school. It takes civil society organisations to report on the situation is on the ground and the concerns they want raised with the government. It is better to send one coordinated report, in this way the Committee knows that they can trust the information and they have one report, rather than 30 or 40. This procedure will probably be available for the Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, so civil society organisations need to start building coalitions now. Discussion Muhannat Alizeeh, Handicap International – Middle East and North Africa: What can be done to combat violence against children with disabilities? This is often denied and hidden from view. GL: The UN Study on Violence against children gives some very specific recommendations on this. There was some input on this on violence against children with disabilities. The difficulty is that this is very much hidden from view and denied. There needs to be a long process of education and sensitisation in families because every country wants to believe it does not happen there, but the reality is that most abuse takes place in families. Monica Lindvall, Save the Children Sweden spoke of the denial of violence against children in Ethiopia. Save did research to document the facts and the voices of people on the ground. This was a wake-up call. In Sweden, we did not know how much abuse occurred, we thought we were very good on these issues. We have a children’s Ombudsperson, a disability ombudsperson with a child rights focus, etc, but we have discovered that abuse is still widespread - it is everywhere. We must be open to talking about it, support each other and create mechanisms to getting it out in the open and having an open dialogue. Aisha Saeed, Save the Children Sweden, Yemen Bandana Shrestha, Save the Children Sweden, Nepal: Nepal and Afghanistan have some of the highest rates of early marriage. They can get married at seven years old. They are treated as domestic servants and sexually abused. We have started a campaign looking at the culture, legislation and what the CRC says, to raise awareness about the negative effects of early marriage, the health risks of delivering at an early age, as well as the economic costs it implies. We work with the Independent Human Rights Commission in Afghanistan. One of the cases we worked on together was concerned a girl that the Commission had taken in because she had been abused by her husband. He tried to do a deal so the case would be dropped. The parents later said that they did not want anything to do with her because of the associated shame. In Islam, if a girl is not of an age where she can give consent, she should not enter into marriage, but culturally it happens. We are trying to link up with mullahs to work on this. Other questions and comments: GL spoke about the Child Rights Education Professionals initiative in Canada. This began by developing a core curriculum on child rights for paediatricians. The initiative has also been taken to Latin America where it was adapted for the region, the next step has been to train trainers. All participants involved then advocate for this training within that professional group. In South Africa, this initiative has been extended and developed to include all health workers. There is a need for statistics in rural areas on children with learning disabilities. Strategies have to be multi-tiered: children with disabilities have to be visible. When a national census is being done, many families deny that these children exist. In some countries there are questions around this included int the census and the national statistics office uses people with disabilities to collect the data where there is particular prejudice, in this way, families are more likely to talk about the issue. In some countries, community development leaders take a lead responsibility. The Maoris in New Zealand and Aboriginals in Australia hold a family group conference: this is in place of a high-level State child protection system. Rather than remove an abused child and place them in an institution, they bring all the people in that child’s life together and create a space where they begin to talk about why things have gone wrong. In this way, the capacities and good will of the community are mobilised. What mechanisms can be used to report on abuse and to lobby governments? There must be a legal framework of protective rights. Civil society has a key role to play in lobbying government for these. You then need to work with government on policies on how these laws can be implemented at the local, national and regional level. You need social workers and other professionals who are trained in child rights, for example doctors who are trained in how to spot abuse, a legal structure which is child-friendly. The mechanisms themselves must be developed specifically for each country by looking at what models exist elsewhere. Other news from day 3
Who should we build alliances with?
We would like to see universal ratification. Yemen and other countries in the region have made a commitment, but must make sure the timetable for ratification and implementation of the Convention does not slip.
Two things that came through from the children’s session yesterday were that they worked together for two days and came up with a lot of recommendations. The other was that children need support from adults to help them create spaces to come together, build understanding and get involved in issues that affect them.
In El Salvador, children with and without disabilities across the country aged 15-18 were trained as advocates. They went into local communities to raise awareness about child rights, especially the rights of children with disabilities. They talked to governing bodies of schools, community leaders, etc, about child rights and what needed to change. Children could report abuses to these child advocates who would take them up with officials. In this way, they also acted as role models.
Save the Children Sweden and the High Council for Mother and Childhood conducted a study on violence against children in all settings. People were trying to hide the facts. One thing we found, however, was strong evidence of abuse by police. The court issued a judgement against police officers for violence against children. Save has now produced a training manual for police on child rights and in 2008 we will launch programmes to raise awareness about these issues.
There is currently a trend for short-term courses on disability issues. It is time to promote and facilitate in-country permanent structures, at university level, institution level, etc.