BELARUS: Children's Rights in the UN Special Procedures' Reports

Summary: This report extracts mentions of children's rights issues in the reports of the UN Special Procedures. This does not include reports of child specific Special Procedures, such as the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, which are available as separate reports.

Please note that the language may have been edited in places for the purpose of clarity.

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• UN Special Rapporteur for Belarus
• UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention
• UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers
• UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression

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UN Special Rapporteur for Belarus, Adrian Severin

Visit request declined in 2004. Report published January 2006

Document code: E/CN.4/2006/36

The report is based on the findings of the Special Rapporteur's missions to Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and his discussions and consultations held in Geneva, Strasbourg and Brussels with representatives of Belarusian human rights and other civil society organisations, the United Nations and specialised agencies, the European Union, the Council of Europe, and diplomats. It is also based on media reports and various documentary sources. (Paragraph 2)

The Special Rapporteur expressed the following concerns:

• Education funding and quality: According to UNDP, there is a high adult literacy rate and high educational enrolment ratios. However, like the health sector, education is underfunded: in 2003, public expenditure on education reached 6.0 per cent of GDP, the internationally accepted minimum being 10 per cent, resulting in the low quality of education and a discriminatory system that widened the gap between Minsk and the countryside. Universities and colleges charge tuition fees, and the commercialisation of higher education imposed a heavy toll on the most vulnerable groups - children from poor families and rural school graduates. (Paragraph 64)

  Educational contents infringe article 13 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, according to which the right to education implies that education should be directed to the full development of the human personality and the sense of its dignity, and strengthen the respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Instead, the Belarusian regime developed an official State ideology, essentially based on Soviet nostalgia and President Lukashenka's personality cult. Compulsory courses on State ideology were also integrated in the curricula of universities and colleges. In May 2005, the Ministry of Education issued a circular "On Measures of Non-Admittance of any Involvement of Pupils and Students in Unlawful Political Activities", which includes expulsion from educational institutions. (Paragraph 65)

  Moreover, the Russification of the national education system advances, and teaching in Belarusian can only take place in almost underground structures, deprived of means and physical space. Nonetheless, recent surveys of the Independent Institute of Socio-Economic and Political Studies (ISEEPS) clearly indicate that a majority of Belarusians are favourable to bilingualism, i.e. the equal status of Russian and Belarusian languages, including in the education system. (Paragraph 65)

• Discrimination in education: The Roma minority (around 70,000 people) is discriminated against. Roma children have serious barriers to enrolling in school. As a result, 50 per cent of the Roma population is illiterate, 85 per cent did not complete secondary education, and 98 per cent of Roma are unemployed. There are neither schools nor newspapers in Romani. According to the lawyer Nicolas Kalinin, there is no official acknowledgement of this situation. (Paragraph 77)

• Juvenile justice: The regime of pretrial detention for minors is the same as for adults, which has worse consequences for them than for adults on account of their vulnerability. (Paragraph 21)

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UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention

Country visit: 16-26 August 2004
Report published: 25 November 2004
Document code: E/CN.4/2005/6/Add.3

The Working Group expressed the following concerns:

• Belarus does not have a specialised system for juvenile offenders. The age of penal responsibility is established at 14 years and penal majority at 18 years. Minors suspected of having committed an offence can be detained in police custody for 72 hours in the same way as adult offenders. They can also be held in pre-trial detention for 10 days before charges are brought, and detained, for the needs of the pre-trial investigation, for up to a maximum of 18 months. (Paragraph 28)
   
• Minors are subject to the same pre-trial detention regime as adults. The prison system is not under the authority of the Minister of Justice but of the Interior, which is involved in the investigation of most cases. This means that those who hold prisoners are not completely separated from those who have an interest in the investigation. The Working Group was under the impression that harsh conditions of pre-trial detention are imposed so as to facilitate the outcome of the investigation, and that the task of those in charge is to actively support the achievement of this goal. (Paragraph 50)

  Judges themselves told the Working Group that there are many flaws in the legislation which do not take into account the special nature of minors. Children are kept in the same pre-trial detention centres (SIZOs) as adults and their detention is submitted to the same regime. The harsh conditions, however, lead to worse consequences for minors because of their vulnerability. When minors are convicted, though conditions have improved, limitations on visits continue to apply. (Paragraphs 69 and 70)

• Detention is the rule, not the exception: Although Belarus has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Child, it does not seem to comply with the principle that detention should be the last resort in the case of juveniles in conflict with the law. According to what the Working Group was told, detention is the rule and not the exception. (Paragraph 71)

  In criminal trials, once a final court decision enters into force, after the exhaustion of all remedies, the convicted person who has been sentenced to a period of deprivation of liberty is sent to a penal colony to serve his/her sentence. For men, there are penal colonies in nearly every oblast (administrative area), for women and children there is only one of each for the whole country. (Paragraph 26)

  The situation of female prison colonies is too restrictive in respect of communication with the outside world, including detainees' children, when they are too old to stay in the colonies with their mothers. (Paragraph 72)

Recommendations

The Working Group encouraged the government to move forward in the establishment of a new juvenile criminal system in conformity with the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Belarus is a party. They concluded that in any case, children should not be held in institutions such as SIZO and in quarters with adults. The Working Group also stated that in case of detention, children should, at all stages of their detention, have more open contacts with the outside world, family and friends. (Paragraph 85)

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UN Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, Dato' Param Cumaraswamy

Country visit: 12 to 17 June 2000
Report published: 8 February 2001
Document code: E/CN.4/2001/65/Add.1

No mentions of children's rights

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UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, Mr. Abid Hussain

Country visit: 28 May - 1 June 1997
Report published: 19 December 1997
Document code: E/CN.4/1998/40/Add.1

No mentions of children's rights