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Summary: CRIN interviewed the Council of Europe's soon-to-be new Commissioner for Human Rights, Mr Nils Muižnieks from Latvia. In January, the Council of Europe’s (CoE) Parliamentary Assembly elected Mr Nils Muižnieks from Latvia as the organisation’s new Commissioner for Human Rights. The Commissioner is mandated to promote the awareness of and respect for human rights in the 47 CoE member states for a term-of-office of six years. Muižnieks’ mandate will begin on 1 April 2012. He will take over from current Commissioner Thomas Hammarberg, who has championed human and children's rights throughout his mandate. As part of CRIN's campaign to promote transparency in how candidates are appointed to the top jobs in children's rights and press those elected to such posts to serve as a strong voice on all children's rights issues, we interviewed Mr Muižnieks to find out more about how he plans to follow up on Thomas Hammarberg's work and tackle some of the more controversial areas of children's rights. What is your experience of working on human rights and children's rights in particular? I began my human rights career by running a human rights NGO in Latvia, that covered the full spectrum of human rights issues, including monitoring places of detention, women's rights, children's rights and issues related to minority rights and anti-discrimination. I did that for eight years. Then I was the Minister of Social Integration in two Latvian governments from 2000 to 2004, with responsibility for minority rights, anti-discrimination and promoting social integration and working with civil society. For the last seven years, I have worked as a director of an Institute of Social Sciences at the University of Latvia. In parallel, I've done some human rights training and evaluations and I have been a member - with regard to Latvia - of the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) - for the last two years I've been chairman of ECRI. Regarding children's rights: in recent years, in my capacity as a member and chair of ECRI on monitoring visits and elsewhere, we focused on promoting the desegregation of Roma children in the schooling system in various European countries, looking at the situation of unaccompanied minor migrants and minor refugees. One issue which has been very close to my heart for many years, which I keep raising, is the issue of stateless children. In the 90s when I was running a human rights NGO, we looked at various cases of domestic violence and trafficking which wasn't such a big issue in the 90s as it is now. These are in brief some of the issues which I have dealt with. Why do you want to serve as Commissioner for Human Rights? I think it is a unique opportunity to help people. That's the point of the job. Writing papers doesn't really make a difference, but you can have an impact on the ground in terms of improving the lives of people by changing policy or practice. I think there's nothing more fulfilling. Of course, human rights is often a frustrating endeavour because you can win a battle or two but it always seems like you're losing the war in general. But there is no more fulfilling battle to lose than trying to make a difference. Human rights has been my passion for about 20 years and I think it is a unique opportunity to work at a new level and broaden my geographical and thematic focus of work. I've done a lot of work throughout the Council of Europe on anti-racism issues, but this allows me to go back to my roots and work on the full spectrum of human rights issues. I looked at Thomas Hammarberg’s work and my competitors for the job and thought “I can do this job, and I can do it well” because of my background, which includes NGO work, government and academia, and I think with my experience in the East and the post-Communist context I can offer something special. To me it's an ideal opportunity to take my professional work forward and I hope I can fill the very high expectations that I think that Thomas Hammarberg has set. He has left big shoes to fill, but I am very excited about starting work on 1 April. Which issue in children's rights do you think needs more attention in Council of Europe countries? I think that children, along with women and elderly people, have been particularly hard hit by the economic crisis throughout the Council of Europe. I think that both the Commissioner, together with some societies and ombudsmen, should raise a stronger human rights voice in the various debates on cutting budgets and highlight the situation of these vulnerable groups in the process of reform and budget-cutting and so on. I think we've seen not only the feminisation of poverty but also the growing sense that both the very young and the very old are those who have been struck hardest by the situation, so this is one issue which will definitely be on my agenda. As I mentioned before, the issue of statelessness among children is very close to my heart, particularly of Roma children in Latvia and Estonia and states which have gone through secession. I've seen people grow up without citizenship and this has contributed to a sense of alienation and lack of ability to participate. I think it's really important to stem these problems as early as possible and to let these children grow up as full citizens of a country. I think that issues of migration - and especially of young migrants - will continue to be very urgent, not only in the traditional cultures and countries which have experienced immigration, but I think we will see Central and Eastern European countries go from being places of emigration to places of immigration. We know from societies elsewhere that this initial stage of becoming a country of immigration produces stresses and strains and I think it's important to draw attention to the situation of children in the context of migration. I imagine that in eastern Europe this will be particularly tough. And then of course, children in institutions. I know that Thomas has drawn some attention to this, but I think it will remain on the agenda. Of course, if these are places of detention, this is more the responsibility of the Committee on the Prevention of Torture, but very often, institutions are not places of detention; they are state-sponsored substitutes for having a child in a family, and especially in the former Communist states; many of these children's homes are isolated from the rest of society and are seen as a solution, while adoption and foster care are relatively weakly developed. As part of our work at CRIN, we monitor trends in children's rights violations as we receive news reports from around the world every day. A trend we have witnessed recently is that a growing number of governments are restricting children's rights “in the name of protection”. For example, recent proposals in Lithuania and Ukraine, to prohibit teaching children about sexuality in schools. Thomas Hammarberg has defended the rights of all LGBT children and youth throughout his mandate, leading to significant changes within the Council of Europe and its member states. Do you plan to follow these efforts in this area and what steps do you plan to take? I think this is often linked to debates about the rights of sexual minorities and LGBTs [which] is a controversial issue in many countries and the outgoing Commissioner has done a lot of excellent work on this which will make my life easier and means I have a good base from which to start! Within Latvia we have these discussions about sexuality in schools. My view is that it's absolutely essential to get good information and education about reproductive health and sexuality in schools. Resistance to these kinds of measures is usually based on conceptions of family models which are divorced from sociological reality when you don't have a two-parent family [where the parents] are married and of opposite sex. Of course, this is a traditional model that I think is very good for children, but it's just not how many people are living these days. I think the education system needs to reflect this. I think there will be a lot of resistance to this, particularly in ex-Communist countries, but not only in those countries. We have to educate children so that they know their choices and can face their responsibilities and develop knowledge of people which is not based on stereotypes and prejudices from the past. Another thing your predecessor Thomas Hammarberg has expressed concern about is that a growing number of states are lowering the minimum age of criminal responsibility. He has emphasised instead the importance of separating the concepts of criminalisation and responsibility. What do you think about that? I would tend to agree with Mr Hammarberg that there is a danger of trying to put too much responsibility on children who are basically just children. This is not an area that I feel I know enough about to comment on in detail, but I'm very sympathetic to this idea that we should not be treating children as adults even if they occasionally act like adults or commit crimes similar to those of adults. I think the potential for change and growth for children is much greater than that of people who are significantly older. However, I don't feel confident enough to give you a detailed response off the top of my head at this time. Another issue which many children's rights advocates focus on is corporal punishment. Currently, 22 Council of Europe countries out of 46 have banned corporal punishment in all settings. What do you think is needed to push the last remaining countries, such as the UK, to prohibit this? I was quite surprised by a recent radio broadcast in the UK on this issue in which a lot of people justified allowing parents to take such measures. To me it sounds very backwards and against all human rights principles. Any kind of violence should be prohibited involving children. I think this is definitely something we will push for in all the member states. I have to get acquainted with the work that has been done to date on this. I know that there has been a lot of discussion within the Council of Europe on mainstreaming children's rights in other monitoring mechanisms. I'm not sure how far corporal punishment has been included in this discussion. At CRIN, we've seen media reports across Europe vilifying children, for example, an article by one UK tabloid saying that children aged three are responsible for a "hidden crimewave”. How do you see your role to work with the media in challenging such images of children? This goes back to the question of the minimum age of criminal responsibility, which I think is a trend contrary to human rights and children's rights. Regarding the media, I didn't see this report in the UK, but one issue I did discuss in the run-up to my election is that we need to engage social media and the issue of social media and human rights much more. I have two children who are aged 13 and 15 and this is how they get all their information, and communicate with their friends. I think there are great risks to human rights, but there is also great potential for social media and until now I haven't seen that much work being done at the Council of Europe on this issue. If we want to reach children with a human rights message we have to engage in a debate with social media and service providers and public authorities monitoring and regulating these kinds of sites and networks to promote digital literacy among young people to see if dialogue and cooperation can be promoted to protect children, and try to curb the negative things that we see on the social networking sites, while also harnessing their huge potential as was demonstrated in promoting human rights in the Arab Spring, for example. I think the tabloids are a very British phenomenon, I'm not well versed in the British media and I do not think they are a [Europe-wide] phenomenon. We see discrimination against children in the media as part of a broader trend of age discrimination against children generally. We often receive reports from around the world about children being arrested for status offences, being denied access to information and services, for example, related to drugs. What do you think is needed to tackle this? This issue can be best addressed by ombudsmen, specialised ombudsmen or national human rights institutions at the national level. From the outside, international NGOs or human rights bodies can only have an impact on the margins in most cases. Specialised ombudsmen have a role to review complaints, promote awareness, and have input in the policy debate, conduct research, and provide assistance to victims, both legal assistance and refer people for psychological assistance. The ombudsman role is absolutely essential, however, but in many countries they have been weakened by cuts as a result of the economic crisis. If we had effective, independent, well -funded ombudsmen and equality bodies at the national level our work would be much easier. So this is one priority for the Commissioner. I know Thomas Hammarberg has done a lot of work on this and I intend to continue this, particularly in the context of discussions about subsidiarity and easing the load on the European Court of Human Rights. Another trend we have witnessed in recent years is the privatisation of many children's services, including schools and prisons. What are your views on this? I think we've seen in the context of the crisis massive cutbacks in state services in general and outsourcing often happens without the necessary regulatory framework to ensure that the outsourced services meet all of the standards that they should. I think that this is a trend that is here to stay while austerity measures are in place and that the old social model that we have become accustomed to has been eroded severely. So I think we need to look at this carefully and standards to which services are held accountable and the particular impact they have on children and elderly people. I think that advocates must spend time in getting access to looking at standards because when the private sector is involved in providing public functions, it's a different legal regime, but they should be held to the same standards as the state sector. Also in the context of austerity, more limitations are being placed on the work of child rights defenders and their freedom to speak out against violations. What measures do you think are needed to strengthen freedom of expression in Europe? This is part of the core mandate of the human rights Commissioner and it's clear that in a number of countries they have come under severe pressure for the information they are trying to distribute and disseminate, but also internationally. I think that one of the key things is to try to engage with government and parliamentarians and sensitise them to the useful role that civil society organisations in general and of human rights organisations in particular can have in terms of highlighting problems and shortcomings and be partners in moving forward to address human rights issues. And it seems to me that issues pertaining to children's rights might be slightly easier to address than some of the other human rights issues because it's hard politically for people to come out against children's rights, at least in a direct way. It seems to me that this will be easier than some of the more politicised issues. What we have noticed in CRIN is that often people think that children's rights issues are easier to deal with because it's hard to come out against children's rights, but what we find is that this is the case with issues such as access to education, but that more difficult issues such as the minimum age of criminal responsibility and sexuality are highly politicised and people are more reluctant to engage with, taking a more protectionist stance which is sometimes contrary to children's rights. I can understand that people raising the flag of law and order would be willing to make life difficult for people trying to promote the rights of young people who have fallen foul of the law, but I think it's essential to counter this, reminding people that they are still developing and they are different from adults and must have a differentiated approach. Going back to the previous question about human rights defenders, what do you think about the newly proposed Global Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement? As far as we understand, it contains provisions which would seriously curtail access to information and have serious consequences to small Internet sites. I have heard about this; I don't know the details, but I know our office is looking at it and hopefully this will be something I can look at when I take up my duties. I don't feel sufficiently well prepared to answer this question right now. One final question on a particular child rights issue: in recent years, European countries are having to deal with crimes against children they've never had to deal with before, such as killings “in the name of honour”, children being sacrificed because they are deemed witches. What do you think is needed to deal with such situations appropriately? I think one thing is that the political message must be clear that this is absolutely unacceptable and that we should have the most severe punishments for those involved in carrying out these crimes. Then of course the education system must include materials on these things and also to try to reach parents. To be honest in Latvia, as far as I know, we've had no clear case of honour killings. You have some forced and arranged marriages apparently. This is something that will undoubtedly come to the region that I live in, but until now I haven't had a lot of contact with it. These cases must be tackled with strong law enforcement, complemented with a strong educational component. In Eastern European countries, which will become countries of immigration in the next decade or so, I think we need to focus on prevention to stop the problem from emerging to begin with. We would like to end by asking you a few general questions about your plans to work with others, including how you plan to involve children in your work as Commissioner? I hope that during my country visits I will be able to meet with children in various settings, including schools, but also outside of schools to talk about possible solutions for problems facing them and transferring this message to the authorities and parliamentarians. Do you plan to work with civil society organisations in Europe? I have a lot of society contacts from my years in this field. I was both head of the human rights NGO which is a member of the International Helsinki Federation for Human Rights, which no longer exists, although there is talk of reviving it in some form. I've also been closely affiliated with the Open Society Institute Network and all the NGOs affiliated to that. I worked for the Soros Foundation in Latvia for a number of years and I'm an outgoing member of the board, so I'm very familiar with that whole network of NGOs. Then finally, through my work with equity, I had a lot of contact with antiracist NGOs and networks, and I hope to capitalise on Mr Hammarberg's network and the various NGOs affiliated with the Council of Europe. I feel very comfortable with talking with and working with NGOs. One final question, what would you be doing if you were not working in human rights? Fishing! No, I would be teaching political science - that's my background; I have a Ph.D. in political science and I also teach the politics of human rights.