20th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child

Communication

2009 Universal Children’s Day and 20th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

OMCT RECOGNISES THE PROGRESS MADE BUT CALLS FOR RENEWED EFFORTS TO END VIOLATIONS OF CHILDREN’S RIGHTS

[Geneva – November 20, 2009] Twenty years ago the United Nations General Assembly took a decisive step towards providing effective protection for the rights of every child in the world by adopting the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention was the response of the international community to relentless reports of the wide spread violation of the most fundamental rights of the child.

Today, the Convention has led to a real improvement in the respect for the rights of the child in many countries. Tragically, the protection has not reached all the children in the world and the international community is now faced with the heavy responsibility of ensuring the effective protection of the rights of all children, wherever they live. Ending these violations is a top priority of World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT) and the members of its SOS-Torture Network.

The Convention, the most ratified human rights treaty in history covering all countries in the world except two,[1] sets high standards for the rights of the child. Covering the whole range of human rights in one treaty, it brings together basic economic, social and cultural rights along side civil and political rights, provides that in relation to decisions concerning a child, “the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration” and sets out the right of a child to take part in decisions concerning her or him. The Convention outlaws “all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse, neglect or negligent treatment, maltreatment or exploitation, including sexual abuse” and torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. It also sets high standards for the protection of a child in conflict with the law, prohibits capital punishment and life imprisonment without possibility of release and provides that the detention of a child shall be a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time.

OMCT has always defended the right of the child to be protected from violence, including torture and other forms of ill-treatment. OMCT does this by firmly denouncing violence against children that results from situations of political and civil repression or from economic, social and cultural conditions.

In this regard, and since OMCT established its Child Rights Activities in 1991, more than 400 urgent appeals, letters and press releases have been circulated alerting the public to serious violations of the Convention such as torture and ill-treatment, illegal detention, forced disappearances, arbitrary executions; more than 3´000 child victims have been concerned by these appeals. In addition, OMCT was one of the first NGOs to submit together with national partners alternative reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child thus paving the way for national and local NGOs to have access to the Committee.

For OMCT the challenge in the coming years is to ensure that the Convention is fully implemented in all countries of the world and benefits each and every child. For this, and in addition to its already existing actions related to the rights of the child (urgent appeals, alternative reports, assistance to victims, international and national advocacy, etc.), OMCT has undertaken the implementation of a new project aimed at protecting children deprived of liberty from violence. Launching this new project was made necessary by the countless reports OMCT received showing the high vulnerability of children deprived of their liberty to acts of violence, amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Unfortunately, OMCT found that existing mechanisms and agencies fail to offer sufficient protection to those children.

Based on the seriousness of the situation of children deprived of liberty and on its strong relations with reliable national NGOs, OMCT selected Uruguay and Benin as pilot countries for the implementation of the project. OMCT and its local partners will establish national teams to monitor places where children are deprived of their liberty and the information so generated will be reported to relevant national, regional and international human rights bodies. In addition, the project also includes activities aimed at addressing the causes of this violence, mainly in the framework of the juvenile justice system. The project aims at preventing violence and alerting the authorities to violations.

Many members of the SOS-Torture Network are implicated in the fight against violence towards children. Following are three examples of members’ actions that complement OMCT’s work on assistance, lobbying and reporting.

The Turkish NGO SOHRAM-CASRA (Social action, rehabilitation and adaptation centre for the victims of torture and violence) assists child victims of violence and support the rehabilitation process for the children by providing educational, psychological and social support to child victims. “Give them a chance” is the title of the day dedicated by SOHRAM-CASRA to the celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Convention when children will release balloons to the sky. The text of the Convention will be distributed and a public seminar on the rights of the child organised at its centre in Diyarbakir, Turkey.

ACAT (Association des Chrétiens pour l’Abolition de la Torture)-France works against the recruitment of children as soldiers in armed conflict and acts with OMCT in the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty to stop child executions in countries where it is still practiced. On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the Convention, ACAT-France will appeal for the transfer of Bosco Ntaganda to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges of having recruited and made children below the age of 15 participate in hostilities in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2002-2003.

DCI (Defence for Children International)-Palestine is also an important partner of OMCT while fighting against torture and other ill-treatments of children in Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories. In this regard, DCI-Palestine collects evidence from victims and publishes reports on rights’ violations suffered by children in the framework of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, particularly illegal detention and torture or ill-treatment. These documents serve as advocacy tools with UN human rights mechanisms in particular. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the Convention, DCI-Palestine will organise a 3-days conference on violence against children in Ramallah from 19 to 21 November 2009 that will include a hundred children aged from 14 to 17 years old, civil society representatives, Palestinian ministers and the media.

On this 20th anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the OMCT would finally draw attention to the current efforts to promote the elaboration of a third optional protocol to the Convention aimed at allowing children and their representatives to submit communications to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Such protocol would have an important potential for providing redress for violations of a child’s rights. To this end OMCT, along with several other NGOs, initiated an international campaign several years ago in favour of such protocol. Given the slow progress made on this important issue in the United Nations, OMCT today again appeals to the Human Rights Council to promptly agree on the drafting of a third protocol establishing a communications procedure for alleged violations of the rights of the child. This would be an important step forward and OMCT keenly encourages all stakeholders to advocate with their national authorities for the elaboration of this protocol in order to make the rights of the child a reality!

Contact:

Child Rights activities Coordinator: Cécile Trochu Grasso: ctg@omct.org

[1] Somalia and United States of America.