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CISMAI
Coordinamento Italiano dei Servizi contro il Maltrattamento e l'Abuso all'Infanzia Partner nazionale ISPCAN |
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| - VIETNAM:
Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in Detention
[publication]
- SRI LANKA: Troops help abduct children as fighters says UN [news] - UGANDA: 'No child captives here' rebels tell UN [news] - DR CONGO: Police arrest 87 children over election clashes [news] - GREECE: New law banning corporal punishment of children [news] - CRC OPTIONAL PROTOCOL: Revised reporting guidelines [publication] ** NEWS IN BRIEF ** ** WEEKLY CRIN QUIZ ** ___________________________________________________________ VIETNAM: Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in Detention [publication] [NEW YORK, 13 November 2006] – Government roundup campaigns to clear Hanoi’s streets of “wanderers” and “vagrants” are landing street children in detention centres, where some are beaten and subject to other forms of abuse, Human Rights Watch said in a recent report. Human Rights Watch is concerned that street children are particularly vulnerable to arrest now, as the Vietnamese government attempts to present its best face for this week’s meetings in Hanoi of world leaders, including US President George Bush, for the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit. “Vietnamese authorities need to protect street children from abuse, not condemn them to further harm by throwing them into detention centres,” said Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Visiting world leaders should press Vietnam to uphold basic rights and freedoms.” Vietnam should abide by its commitments to protect children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, especially children deemed particularly vulnerable to abuse, Human Rights Watch said. Vietnam was the first country in Asia and the second in the world to ratify the treaty. The 77-page report, Children of the Dust: Abuse of Hanoi Street Children in Detention, documents cases of serious violations of the rights of street children in Hanoi. Police routinely round up street children in arbitrary sweeps and deposit them at state “rehabilitation” centres – euphemistically called “Social Protection Centres” – where they are detained for periods ranging from two weeks to as much as six months. Drawing on testimonies from street children interviewed over the past three years, Human Rights Watch detailed the particularly harsh treatment at one of the rehabilitation centres, Dong Dau Social Protection Centre. Children there are locked up in filthy, overcrowded cells for 23 hours a day, sometimes together with adults, with only a bucket for excrement. The lights remain on night and day. They are released for two half-hour periods per day to wash and to eat. They are offered no rehabilitation, no educational and recreational activities, and no medical or psychological treatment. Their families are often not notified about where they are. Even more disturbing are reports that children at Dong Dau are subject to routine beatings, verbal abuse and mistreatment by staff. “Staff members in the so-called rehabilitation centre have slapped and punched children, and beat them with rubber truncheons,” said Richardson. “Children report being placed in isolation, deprived of food and medical treatment, and denied family contact. This violates both Vietnamese and international law.” After being beaten, the children rarely receive medical treatment for their injuries, nor are staff persons who carry out the beatings disciplined. “Rather than serving as a rehabilitation centre, Dong Dau is a de facto jail,” said Richardson. “Upon release, the children return battered, bruised and even less well-equipped to survive on the streets of Hanoi.” None of the children Human Rights Watch spoke to were provided any legal representation or told what, if any, charges were being brought against them; nor did their cases go before a court of law. Officially, the government’s policy is to round up street children in order to reunite them with their families. In practice, staff members at Dong Dau rarely make an effort to link children with their families or even notify the families about their children’s whereabouts. At the end of their detention, efforts are rarely made to take the children home or reunite them with their families. Instead, the children told Human Rights Watch that they are deposited at the gates of the centre – more than 20 miles from Hanoi – and expected to find their way back. Most do not return to their homes in the countryside, but end up in Hanoi with no new alternatives. Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11179 For more information,
contact: Further information Consortium for Street
Children: Police Training Toolkit (2005)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------- SRI LANKA: Troops help abduct children as fighters says UN [news] [COLOMBO, 13 November 2006] - A UN envoy on Monday accused elements within Sri Lanka's security forces of helping to abduct children as soldiers for a group of renegade rebels who are fighting the Tamil Tigers. Allan Rock, Special Adviser to the UN Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict in Sri Lanka, said President Mahinda Rajapakse had vowed to immediately probe the allegations and punish those responsible. Rock said his mission had found credible evidence that troops were helping a group led by a former rebel commander called Karuna. "One very disturbing element that confronted us ... has to do with the complicity and participation of some elements of the government's security forces in the forcible abductions by Karuna of children (in the east)," Rock told a news conference. "We encountered both direct and indirect evidence of this complicity and participation." Sri Lanka's government is under mounting international pressure to halt fierce fighting with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) that has killed around 3,000 civilians, troops and rebels so far this year alone amid the worst fighting since a now crumbled 2002 truce. Rock said the Tigers were also recruiting children as fighters, failing to honour pledges, and had promised to release all underage rebels by 1st January 2007. UNICEF lists 1,598 outstanding cases of under age recruitment by the Tigers, 649 of which are still under the age of 18. The agency also lists 142 outstanding cases of under age recruitment by the Karuna group. Rock suspects the real number of underage recruits is far higher. [Source: AlertNet] Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11186 Further information --------------------------------------------------------------------------- UGANDA: 'No child captives here' rebels tell UN [news] [RI-KWANGBA, 13 November 2006] - Joseph Kony, the Ugandan rebel leader, told the top United Nations humanitarian official that his group did not hold any children captive, insisting instead that he only had 'combatants' in rebel ranks. "We don't have any children in our movement, there is [sic] only combatants," Kony said after a short meeting on Sunday with the UN Emergency Relief Coordinator, Jan Egeland, near the border between Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Kony, leader of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA), is notorious for kidnapping children to fight in his ranks or to serve as sex slaves to his commanders. Egeland met the rebel leader under a tarpaulin at a muddy clearing in Ri-Kwangba, one of two assembly points in southern Sudan, where LRA fighters are expected to gather after a landmark cease-fire agreed with the Ugandan government in Juba, capital of southern Sudan. Egeland said he had asked Kony: "What I should tell the mothers who have been crying and begging to see their abducted children?" Egeland had hoped to secure the release of women, children and injured fighters but came away empty-handed after waiting more than two hours for the reclusive LRA leader. The rebel group signed a new truce this month with the Ugandan government, paving the way for further talks to end the war and allow the two million people who have been displaced by two decades of fighting in the region to return home. Kony and his high command have, however, refused to attend the Juba talks, despite signing the agreement, fearing arrest on war crimes charges. The International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued warrants for the arrest of five commanders, including Kony and his deputy Vincent Otti, accusing them of crimes against humanity. The ICC’s move has been opposed by many people in northern Ugandan, who say the court's involvement will only prolong the conflict. The Ugandan government has promised Kony an amnesty if the talks succeed, suggesting that traditional northern Ugandan forms of justice may be adopted to end the conflict. Kony and Otti told Egeland the ICC arrest warrants were a major obstacle to the talks. "If the warrants are lifted, then we can go to the peace talks," Otti said. Before flying out to meet Kony, Egeland had met parties in Juba involved in trying to end northern Uganda's brutal 20-year civil war. "I think we can make progress. It took time before the international community saw the potential of the process. We now realise this and are there to help," Egeland said after meeting the chief mediator of the talks, Riek Machar, the south Sudanese Vice-President. [Source: IRIN] Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11185 Further information --------------------------------------------------------------------------- DR CONGO: Police arrest 87 children over election clashes [news] [KINSHASA, 13 November 2006] - Police in Kinshasa, capital of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have arrested 337 people, including 87 children, over violence that rocked the city on Saturday, Interior Minister Denis Kalume said on Monday. At least four people died when fighting broke out between security forces and supporters of Jean-Pierre Bemba, the challenger to President Joseph Kabila in presidential elections on 29 October. The results are expected on 19 November. Kalume told IRIN that calm had returned to the city after a meeting between Kabila, Bemba and the head of the United Nations Mission in the DRC, William Swing, aimed at averting more violence. Kinshasa Governor Liwanga Mata said a precarious calm reigned in the city on Monday after the violent confrontations that led to the deaths of three civilians and a soldier. Kalume said bandits, locally known as 'shegues', so-called by popular Congolese musician Papa Wemba, were behind Saturday's clashes. "It was when the police started chasing the vagrants, who were disturbing public order by barricading the roads with flaming tyres in several areas near a private TV station and Bemba's residence that the exchange of fire took place," Kalume said. "It was around Bemba's residence that people in civilian clothes started firing at the police and everything degenerated from there," Kalume added. He said police used tear gas and fired into the air to disperse the rioters. Saturday's clashes marked a second attack on Bemba's home, where a coalition supporting his candidature had planned a meeting to review vote counting after the 29 October run-off poll. Tension has increased in Kinshasa as the date set by the Independent Electoral Commission to release provisional poll results approaches. However, the partial results published by the commission already put Kabila in the lead, with 61 per cent of votes against Bemba's 39 per cent. Since the publication of these interim results, Bemba's camp has denounced what it called irregularities and loss of their votes to Kabila. "What is seen here is systematic cheating," said Eve Bazaiba, the spokeswoman for Bemba's supporters, the Union pour la Nation. To avoid further confrontation, representatives of the two candidates have been making daily efforts to meet officials of the electoral commission. Security measures have also been taken. Kalume said the arrests made were in line with decisions taken during meetings between the electoral commission and representatives of the two candidates. "We will send them for training for the national service so they can become useful to the nation," he said. "We will send them to the Kanyama Kasese site in Katanga Province and to Menkao, a Kinshasa residency where they can farm." On Friday, representatives of the two candidates signed a deal committing each camp not to incite the army, police or security services to be partisan or to be driven by selfish interest. The two camps have also agreed to abstain from any attempt to influence the decision of the chain of command of armed forces, police and security services, and to avoid any act aimed at destabilising the security structures. The rivals have committed themselves to "continue working after the elections, in power and in the opposition, towards a complete integration, reform and reconstruction of a republican armed forces and unified police". Kabila and Bemba also signed a "goodwill" agreement soon after the run-off poll, urging the eventual loser to accept the poll results and calling for calm and protection of the loser. [Source: AlertNet] Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11195 Further information --------------------------------------------------------------------------- GREECE: New law banning corporal punishment of children [news] [13 November 2006] - The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, last week sent a letter to the Greek Foreign Minister welcoming the recent adoption by Parliament of a law on domestic violence, under which corporal punishment of children has become prohibited. Greece became the fifteenth European country to have legally banned corporal punishment - a move which was described by the Commisioner as a “significant milestone”. The other fourteen European countries to have made this leap are Sweden (1979), Finland (1983), Norway (1987), Austria (1989), Cyprus (1994), Denmark (1997), Latvia (1998), Croatia (1999), Bulgaria (2000), Germany (2000), Iceland (2003), Romania (2004), Ukraine (2004) and Hungary (2005). The Greek Ombudsman (Department of Children’s Rights) noted that some members of the consultative committee on this piece of legislation – made of governmental and NGO participants – were disappointed that the new law did not incorporate the term “corporal punishment”. However, an explanatory report issued to Parliament made it clear that the more general term “physical violence” did include corporal punishment. The Greek law will come into force on 24 January 2007 and will form the basis of a public education campaign aiming to raise awareness of the need to end corporal punishment in parenting. The law’s adoption had been prompted by Greece’s violation of article 17 of the European Social Charter. Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11188&flag=news Further information --------------------------------------------------------------------------- CRC OPTIONAL PROTOCOL: Revised reporting guidelines [publication] The Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography entered into force in 2002, and States that have ratified it have recently started to submit their initial reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child containing comprehensive information on the measures they have taken to implement the provisions of the Protocol nationally. Thereafter, pursuant to article 12, paragraph 2, of the Protocol, States parties having submitted their initial report under this Protocol shall include in the reports they submit to the Committee in accordance with article 44, paragraph 1 (b), of the Convention any further information with respect to the implementation of the Optional Protocol. States parties to the Optional Protocol that are not parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child shall submit a report within two years following the entry into force of the Protocol and then every five years. Guidelines regarding
initial reports to be submitted by States
parties under article 12, The revised guidelines
are divided into eight sections. The Committee particularly
wants to draw attention of the States
parties to the annex to Visit: http://www.crin.org/resources/infoDetail.asp?ID=11191 For more information,
contact: Further information --------------------------------------------------------------------------- UN: Human Rights Council
to hold special session on Israel’s
actions in Gaza (14 November) UNESCO/UNICEF: Meeting
of the EFA High-Level Group in Cairo:
Early childhood education top of agenda
(14-16 November) UNHCR: Kenya floods
cause havoc in refugee camps for Somalis
(13 November 2006) Women with Disabilities
Australia: Sterilisation of children
with intellectual disabilities (10
November) El Comercio Perú
: New office will protect children's
rights in Peru (9 November) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Child Rights and the Inter-American System of Human Rights Around the world there are different regional mechanisms which aim to promote and protect human rights, these include the African Union, the Council of Europe and the Inter-American System on Human Rights. This week's quiz is on the Inter-American System. The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) held its 126th session between 16-27 October 2006 at the headquarters of the Organisation of American States (OAS) in Washington DC. During this session, the Commission held four hearings on children’s rights. The next session will take place between 26 February – 9 March 2006. For more information, see CRIN's information page on the Inter-American System Test your knowledge of children's rights in the Inter-American System below. Visit: http://www.crin.org/quiz/index.asp?quizID=1015
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