State Violence against Children

Summary: War destruction and traumas, and
their long-term social and
psychological consequences, will
influence the increase and
structuring of family disorders, but
also the increase of violence in the
wider social environment. In this
context, a need for the society's
involvement on all levels of
prevention of violence and direct
protection of abused children is
obvious.

1 Committee on the Rights of the Child Day of General Discussion State Violence Against Children Friday, 22 September 2000 – OHCHR (Palais Wilson, Geneva) Submission by Yugoslav Child Rights Center State Violence against Children Article 19 Protection of children from different forms of violence in the FRY is regulated by family and criminal law. Family law regulations in the FRY require that all legal bodies, other organisations and every individual notify the guardianship authority as soon as they learn that parents are not capable of fulfilling their parental rights or that a child needs protection for any other reason (Article 133 ZBPO RS 1 , Article 76, II, PZ RCG 2 ). Unfortunately, this obligation is not sanctioned, but rather represents a moral and professional duty. The guardianship authority's jurisdiction in such cases is large. They are authorised to: warn, advise and provide social support to parents, perform permanent monitoring of the parental right and in a case when they find that the child's rearing is seriously endangered, they are authorised to commit the child to another person's or organisation's care (Art. 136 ZBPO RS, Art. 70 PZ RCG). The guardianship authority is also authorised to submit a proposal to extrajudicial court for the deprivation of the parental rights or to participate in other court proceedings by providing professional opinions and/or representing the child's rights and interests. The court is authorised to deprive parents who abuse their parental rights or who severely neglect their parental duties, of their parental rights (Art 139 ZBPO RS, Art. 82 PZ RCG), the right to raise their children in case of serious danger to their adequate rearing or limit/restrain contact with the child. (Measures concerning the limitation of contact with the child were not fully developed in the family law until recently, when the legislative commission working on Amendments to the Marriage and Family Relations Act introduced various new solutions). In addition to the family law regulations, criminal legislation also prescribes the protection of children from physical and mental violence. First of all, it sactions violence against any person, such as criminal acts of: murder, physical harm, exposure to danger, abandoning of a vulnerable person, inducement and assistance in suicide, participation in physical fights, endangerement with weapons, enabling the use of drugs. Some of these acts have their qualified forms if the victim is a minor (such as the criminal acto of inducing and assistence in suicide or enabling the use of drugs). Sexual abuse of children is also sanctioned by the criminal legislation. These criminal acts have qualified forms if performed upon a minor. Such is the case of statutory rape, coersion to intercourse or unnatural debauchery, intercourse and unnatural debauchery with a vulnerable person, debouchery and unnatural debouchery and procurement and enabling debouchery upon a child under 14 (Art. 103 – 105, 108 – 111 KZ RS 3 and Art. 86 – 88, 91 – 93 KZ RCG 4 ). In addition, this law includes the criminal act of intercourse and unnatural debauchery by the abuse of power and its qualified form if the act was performed by a teacher and other individuals with whom the child is in a state of dependence (Art. 107 KZ RS, Art, 90 KZ RCG). Children under the age of 14 are entitled to apsolute protection, and that is regulated by the specific criminal act of intercourse and unnatural debouchery with a child under 14 (Art. 106 KZ RS, Art. 89 KZ RCG). Criminal acts against marriage and family include sanctioning neglect and abuse of minors, failure to pay alimony, breach of family responsibilities, seizure of minors, illegitimate marriage with minors, incest. Detection and reporting of these criminal acts, as well as court proceedings are regulated by the Criminal Proceedings Act. A child of the age of 16 is authorised to give statements and take action in the proceedings (Art. 64, 2, ZKP SRJ). Also, this Act prescribes an obligation of extremely careful treatment of the child victim during interrogation (Art. 231 (4) ZKP SRJ). Although child abuse is one of the most notable manifestations of violence in society, it was only in recent years that it has started attracting the interest and attention of professionals and general public in the FRY. Knowledge of etiological factors of family violence and violence against children in general, together with the current state of the Yugoslav society marked by a long-term economic, political and social crisis, have resulted in the increase of the scope and intensity of this problem. War destruction and traumas, i.e. their long-term social and psychological consequences, as well as the expected difficulties of the post-war period, will almost certainly influence the increase and structuring of family disorders, but also the increase of violence in the wider social environment. In this context, a need for the society's involvement on all levels of prevention of violence and direct protection of abused children is obvious. Implementation of the right requires conduct of various programmes and measures of legal, social, medical and educational character, which designates coordination of governmental services, professional institutions and NGOs focused on child protection and the development of appropriate standards of protection in all social sub-systems (Article 39). Primary practical as well as research results indicate the basic problems and weaknesses of protection: 1. insufficient public awareness, even among professionals, of the widespread presence of this problem and its characteristics; 2. lack of specific professional knowledge and skills regarding case recognition and investigation contents of prevention and case- treatment. 3. lack of coordination and interconnection between different system institutions responsible for solving this problem. 4 The improvement of practice in this area requires, in the first place, creation of models of protection, which would link the activities of relevant bodies and institutions, as well as relevant NGOs. In that sense, this project is focused on the development of a methodological basis, and forming and training of coordination (multidisciplinary) teams working on the protection of abused children. Article 37 According to Artile 25 of the Constitution of the FRY, no one could be subjected to torture and humiliating punishment and treatment. The same warranty is included in republic constitutions (Art. 26 of the Constitution of Serbia and Art. 24 of the Constitution of Montenegro). Capital punishment, according to the Art. 21, 2 of the FRY Constitution, could not be applied to any of the criminal acts from the federal law. However, in certain cases, it could be applied for criminal acts defined in the republic criminal laws, whereas the punishment is forbiden for individuals who were under the age of 21 at the time of the crime (Art. 2a KZ RS, Art. 3a KZ RCG). Also, Penal Code of the FRY forbids misuse in the scope of professional duty, which is defined as abuse, inflicting serious physical and mental suffering, intimidation, insulting or any act offending human dignity (Art. 191 KZ SRJ). Republic regulations also define the criminal act of abuse in office, performed by an official (Art. 66 KZ RS, Art. 36 and 37 KZ RCG). Additionally, criminal acts of inflicting serious physical injuries performed by any individual are sanctioned (Art. 53 and 54 KZ RS., Art. 36 and 37 KZ RCG). The above stated leads to a conclusion that penal codes provide the protection of children from all forms of violence and torture, particularly if they were performed by an official. In the FRY, there are even commissions entitled to review the misuse performed by officials on duty. However, practice is quite contrary. This is verified by cases of arrests of minors, members of the Otpor (Resistence) organisation, who were brutally interrogated and insluted, and in none of the cases were they allowed to contact their parents. In most cases, the arrested minors were not beaten. However, there are exceptions (the case of Slobodan Mijatovic from Sabac, Tanja Zivanovic from Belgrade, Marko Nikolic from Velika Plana). Unfortunately, there is no information whatsoever as to wheter the policemen were charged within the police itself (this possibility is defined by the acts of their internal organisation and is regulated by disciplinary accountability), nor have charges been brought before the court, or a discussion before the Commission in the Serbian Parliament. Besides the practice, which is an existent problem, some particular laws, such as the Internal Affairs Act or the Misdemeanor Act, are not in complete compliance with the Constitution of the FRY and the Constitutions of Serbia and Montenegro, including even the current criminal legislature, which defines some basic rignts of minors, which could be considered basic human rights, such as the right to defence, to the presence of parents or guardians during interogation, the right to be present during the interrogation of 5 witnesses and to question them, the right file complaints (these rights are defined by the Criminal Proceedings Act of the FRY). Unfortunately, for instance, according to the current Misdemeanor Act of the Republic of Serbia, many of these rights are brought to question. This results in cases where a minor could be punished more severely for a similar act in the misdemeanor proceedings than in criminal proceedings, i.e. where a minor could be deprived of some specific procedural advantages, freedoms, prerogatives, procedural guarantees for child rights. An especially dangerous situation exists in cases when, for instance, older minors are sentenced to high fines (the case in Velika Plana), which they are unable to pay, while it is known that in cases of failure to pay the fine, the law requires its replacement with imprisonment, which on the other hand, cannot excede 15 days for these individuals. Otherwise, criminal law in the FRY allows only one sentence for minors – juvenile imprisonment of up to 10 days. This penalty could be sentenced only on older minors, in exceptional cases defined by the law. Besides this criminal sanction, minors could be sentenced to an educational measure, which is implemented most often, or some forms of security measures. As said before, misdemeanor sanctions for older minors include educational measures or penalties (fines or imprisonment), while in specific cases educational measures are accompanied by security measures. Younger juveniles could only be sentenced to educational measures in misdemeanor proceedings. None of the laws in the FRY define corporal punishment and children are protected from all its forms by the Constitution. 6 August, 2000 EXCERPTS FROM THE DOSSIER ON REPRESSION OVER MINORS The YuCRC compiled a Dossier on the repression over minors, a written document being updated regularly, containing data on arrested minors in Serbia in the last three months. The report is based on articles from the daily press and electronic media, as well as the Otpor and Democratic Party data bases. According to this report, in the last three months, around one hundred minors, mostly Otpor activists, were brought in for interrogation as a result of the police's repression focused on this movement. Almost all minors were arrested during some of Otpor activities. They were taken to local police stations and held for several hours. The police did not allow them to use their right to a telephone call, so almost none of them could contact their parents. As far as we know, none of the children were interrogated in the presence of their parents. According to the available data, all minors had their fingerprints taken and the police opened their dossiers. Besides the classic arrests, in some towns the police searched the houses of Otpor activists in early morning hours. In Ljig, for instance, local policemen went to the home of two elementary school children, because the school headmaster reported them for drawing the Otpor sign (a styled clenched fist) on walls. Although most of the arrested minors were not beaten, some extreme cases occurred: - Slobodan Mijatovic (Sabac), an Otpor activist, got hit twice on the head by the policeman during the arrest; the policeman put a crumpled Otpor poster in his mouth; - Vasilev Igor (17) was arrested on the 28 of June in Nis on the account of the possetion of audio tapes containing music to be played at an Otpor event. He was interrogated by the narcotics and juvenile delinquency inspectors. On the same day in this town, Marko Markovic (17) was arrested for wearing an Otpor t-shirt. He was insluted, pulled by the hair, questioned about the movement and had a dossier opened. Both of them were not allowed to make a telephone call. - Marko Nikolic, a minor from Velika Plana, was hit twice in the area of kidneys by the policeman during his arrest; before the hitting, the policemen unlocked his gun and fired a shot in the air. - Tanja Živanoviæ (Belgrade), an Otpor activist, was arrested with a large group of her peers; this girl was held in the police station for 7 hours and 30 minutes. She was hit several times and her home was searched. » It was the first time that I was arrested – she said for the Belgrade daily »Danas«. – One of the two inspectors was very aggressive, in the very beginning he said that I was lying and he kicked me in the leg. He was talking about violent methods, kept yelling and cursing. He asked me who the president of Otpor was, if I had been in contact with the top, who financed us, would I throw a bomb...« - In Velika Plana, three minors were fined to the highest amounts for putting posters on the buldings' walls in that town. The curiosity of this sentence is the fact that it was based on the reccommendation of the centre for social work. - According to the statement of the Vojvodina League of Socialdemocrats, in mid August the police arrested 18 male youths who were returning from a local club. None of them was a member of Otpor or any political party. Many of them were minors. According to the statements of those arrested, the police interrogation is violent, accompanied by insults and offensive language. The questions usually asked are: who finances Otpor, who is the president, what are their aims. Sometimes they ask questions related to the unsolved murders in Belgrade. The police often inquires about the economic background of the arrested minor's family. A mother of an arrested minor from Sabac believes that the financial police closed down her cosmetic shop on the account of her son's activism.