Committee on the Rights of the Child: 44th session from January 15 to February 2, 2007

In its report, OMCT expresses several preoccupations. First, children from indigenous communities, like Mapuche are particularly discriminated; this discrimination can amount to acts of torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. In the report, OMCT denounces cases perpetrated against children by security forces (public and private), directly or indirectly (when a child is witness of the act). Those facts enter in the context of the conflicts between the government and the indigenous communities, related to the legal ownership of lands. In its alternative report, OMCT denounces as well that the Valech Commission (National Commission on the Political Imprisonment and Torture) did not recognize the “ex-minors” who were kidnapped, sequestered, detained and even tortured or disappeared under the Pinochet dictatorship, as victims of this regime, but only as sons or daughters of political victims. OMCT supports the Chilean NGOs demand, for the reopening of the Commission and for the formal recognition of the victims’ status in favour of the “ex-minors”. OMCT is also particularly concerned about the excessive use of force by the security forces to repress pupils and students’ demonstrations in May 2006, especially in Santiago. Many children under the age of 18 years were injured and detained. OMCT wishes that the Committee on the Rights of the Child recommends Chile to prosecute those responsible of such abuses.

OMCT's Alternative Report on the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Chile (in Spanish)

Alternative report summary (in English)

For the 44th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, OMCT also submitted an alternative report on the situation of the rights of the child in Kenya. OMCT denounces in its report the extrajudicial killings of street children by State agents and their impunity. OMCT regrets that corporal punishment and sexual harassment still occur in schools, although the law punishes those acts. OMCT also recommends in the report to carry out awareness raising campaigns about female genital mutilation and early marriage. At last, OMCT denounces the custody as a measure of protection for children victims of violence, constituting a de facto deprivation of liberty.

OMCT's Alternative Report on the Committee on the Rights of the Child in Kenya (in English)

Besides, the Committee considers the initial reports of Costa Rica and Kyrgyzstan, for both the Optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and the Optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict.

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44th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child