Friday, December 04, 2009
Cult of personality excessive in American schools?, by Marie-Eve Martineau
Relatives of several U.S. states (New Jersey, Maryland) complain of the excessive politicization of their schools. It would, indeed, the children sing odes to the glory of Obama. One of the songs, which incorporates an air well known in the United States, changing the name of Jesus with that of Obama.
In the case of New Jersey school director initially refused to comment on the video merely to condemn the capture of the video ... We learn, moreover, that the song also boasts equal pay was part of celebrations of the Month Black History in the United States.
Words of the first song
Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in His sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama
Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama
Words of the second song
Hello, Mr. President we honor you today!
For all your great accomplishments, we all doth say "hooray!" [February 2009?]
Hooray, Mr. President! You're number one!
The first black American to lead this great nation!
Hooray, Mr. President we honor your great shots
To make this country's economy number one again!
Hooray Mr. President, we're really proud of you!
And we stand for all Americans under the great Red, White and Blue!
So continue ---- Mr. President we know you'll do the trick
So here's a hearty hip-hooray ----
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Hip, hip hooray!
Link
Labels: Children, Education, Marie-Êve Marineau, Obama, United States
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Great "Darkness": family portrait monochrome, grin, shortage Francocentrism and Anon, by Noémie Cournoyer
There is a simplistic mythology of Quebec history: Before it was bad and sad, and now it's finally happy. All statistics on the increase in suicides among youth, unemployment, a slow decline (and the requirement to have two earners in a family), the largest use of drugs, the ever-important d ' abortions, the increasing number of broken families will not change anything.
It is an article of faith and we must propagate the myth (fabula is propaganda).
We had already seen the treatment that was a caricature book LIDEC (with legal errors, and papal history in some cases).
Editions of La Pensée (made famous by a radio host for their bias in favor of Ms. Françoise David) is needed to contribute to the spread of the simplistic myth.
The booklet manual 1st RCT secondary looks so on the societal changes that followed the advent of the Quiet Revolution.
In the left column of scenes of life of 50 years, in the right column of the corresponding scenes of the 2000s.
What is happening now there immediately?
The family portrait is monochrome (yes, of course the pictures were often, but life was it?), everyone is serious in 1950. Today, everything is color and smiles.
In the schoolyard, the nun who oversees sports a grin authoritarian. The children have been experiencing a shortage of cultural topics and a Franco-French cultural somewhat open to the world, while today the prevailing cultural wealth that finally opens in a globalized world (and not standardization and Americanization of course).
Finally, the class of the 50s Unisex (how horrible!) is dominated by a nun who seems to mumble a strong voice lesson while students are passive on their bench. Nothing to do with classes today where young chemists (down with classic culture!) work and discover their own small groups and experience modern science under the approving eyes of a charming host of class smiling and benevolent. A malevolent spirit will notice that in the modern classroom are valued roles held by women: the moderator, the two girls who handle tube.
Picture
On the myth of the Great Darkness, read
The example of Quebec's past to the twenty-first century;
The myth of the Great Darkness and Quebec underdeveloped;
The classical colleges;
Statism and the decline of Quebec;
The Quiet Revolution: break or turning point?
Excerpts:
On the eve of the Quiet Revolution, Quebec is not an underdeveloped society. Half of Francophones are employed ... in the service sector? In 1931, the census shows that few people still lived on agriculture and that 2 / 3 of the workforce employed in the secondary sector (manufacturing) or tertiary (services). The manufacturing industry had always grown here at the same pace as in Ontario, and has been since Confederation. Throughout the twentieth century, the proportion of Quebec workers working in the industrial sector is comparable to the proportions observed in the United States and several European countries.
There does not further delay of urbanization in the province. Migration to cities is steadily since the late nineteenth century. Quebec has an even higher rate than urban Ontario from 1900 until the 2nd World War and would remain above the Canadian average thereafter (for a threshold of urbanization of 10 000 inhabitants ).
[...]
This suggests that Quebec francophones have never had the mentality of "born to a roll, and for good reason. In 1953, Quebec had the second per capita income highest in the world after the United States (excluding the rest of Canada). Did we really need the Quiet Revolution and state intervention to lift Quebecers that alleged "Great Darkness"? Absolutely not! Quebecers were developed and upgraded by themselves, and long, without state support.
[...]
Jean-Luc Migué Statism and decline in Quebec: Review of the Quiet Revolution overturns the conventional view and argues that the Quiet Revolution, far from the boom period that has allowed Quebec to have access to modernity and to catch up its delay, has instead resulted in degeneration economic, political and social response to dramatic growth of the state. It is from this moment that the gap between the standard of living of Quebecers and Ontarians began to increase, the decline of Montreal has accelerated for the benefit of Toronto, that linguistic conflict and political worse, that sectors such as health and education have suffered the onslaught of ever more intrusive bureaucracy. Quebec is of course a dynamic company with an enviable standard of living, but our integration into the capitalist economy in North America that brings these benefits. All sectors controlled by the state are themselves perpetually in crisis.
To not slow the loading of this page by too many color images, we stored five pages of this activity (SAE) here.
Link
Labels: Children, Education, Noémie Cournoyer, Québec
The boys, weaker sex at school, by Marie-Êve Marineau
Save the boys!, Jean-Louis Auduc, part but not against the law-thread Go Girls! (Seuil, 1992) and What's New in girls? (Nathan, 2007), sociologists Christian Baudelot and Roger Establet.
If social inequalities in access to education are now questioned and give rise to the establishment of public policies, there is another divide largely ignored. Yet again, the numbers are overwhelming: boys and girls are not equal in class. Of the 150 000 young people leaving without any qualifications in the education system in which the media often tell us, we do not say that over 100 000 are boys. From elementary school, boys show a delay in the acquisition of reading and writing and clog structures for students in difficulty or perpetrators of violent behavior. The sexual divide is often more significant than the social divide in the analysis of school careers. The traditional studies, developed in terms of economic inequality and cultural, must evolve to a place in this disturbing reality. School failure has a sex. Claiming to solve this societal problem without taking into account one of its main features is illusory.
A bad score that continues from primary to tertiary, as seven out of ten women have a tank or a diploma postbac, against six out of ten men. According to 2008-2009 figures from the Ministry of Education, girls are 31% to get one as good or very good bac S (which do not attract the scientists, but strong), against 24% of boys.
Why such a difference and such a failure? "The girls, or poorly recognized in the house, have over-invested in the school and they are recognized, the author explains, deputy director of the IUFM Paris-XII Val de Marne at Creteil. Conversely, boys are often found in their family but they live in an identity crisis at school. (...) The belief of their superiority confronts the boys to insoluble contradictions do not result in a superior intellectual girls in their class."
We note immediately that the obvious physical precocity of girls do not seem to have touched the author as a possible explanation for the difference in results between boys and girls, nor the fact that the school promotes attitudes traditionally "female": listening and obedience.
Results for author: The boys are taken to devalue the academic knowledge and to rebel against the school. The spiral of failure is initiated. She checks into the direction where the girls are under-represented in the so-called short courses (CAP, BEP, Bac STI, bac pro, etc..) However, they are overrepresented in higher education, except networks of excellence, where boys fro before them.
Indeed, despite the best educational pathways, girls less often than they choose the channels of the elite. This situation is linked to a "cultural atavism" that prevents "shake the boundaries of male and female within the family" by the author. Recall that, according to other authors, it is simply a strategy to choose careers that allow maternity and employment (by avoiding areas where knowledge quickly becomes obsolete). According to a study (March 2009) of the National Fund for Family Allowances, two thirds of parenting and household work based on women.
The author's family - one that students and the one reproduced - there she is, the great fault ... "The professional discrimination no longer find their roots in the institutional inequalities, whether at school or in the laws, but in private homes and consciences," writes the author. Discrimination based on traditional images of both sexes who have strong repercussions on the education of each other. It does not, however, how the struggle for adequate fight against these stereotypes would solve the problems of boys!
The author argues that the fact of less verbally and physically stimulate the boys (which wants stronger) has a direct influence on language acquisition slower in male children. And therefore their education. One wonders which conveys stereotypes here.
Many boys "do not rise forever the stereotype that often embodies the parenting that verbal communication is a skill largely female," says Jean-Louis Auduc. In contrast, the image of women portrayed in some circles "to help girls develop the ability to listen and order which will be an asset to the school." And in society? This is all the more true as we descend the social ladder, and ultimately more damaging to boys from disadvantaged backgrounds. Kings home, they are disallowed in school, where, according to the author, the macho mentality places them in a position of rebels, therefore refusal and failure. In short, if the boys are not doing it because boys are not educated as girls.
How to overcome this situation? For the author, struggling against the macho stereotypes and limiting mixed paradoxically, the author proposes that does not mean campaigning for the return of single-sex classes, but questioned "the appropriateness of some activities where to better manage the entire class, boys and girls are separated.
Worst case for Le Monde but not unrealistic: it is also conceivable that the gender gap will decrease with the continued rise of girls. By dint of closer social positions of the boys, they also adopt the codes and develop turn perverse aspects still own stereotypes of sex "safe". But would it be a victory for them?
This is the portrait of the painful adjustment to male school that this essay focuses. These include social and cultural reasons that predispose boys to fail and girls to succeed in order to propose concrete solutions to this problem collectively.
Source : Le Monde and the publisher
Link
Labels: Children, Education, Marie-Êve Marineau
Sunday, October 11, 2009
My name is Simon Deng, a Christian, a former slave in Sudan, victims of Jihad, by Annie Lessard and Marc Lebuis
"At 9 years, I was abducted into slavery and given to an Arab family. My people have been subjected to mass murder, slavery, systematic rape, religious persecution, famine imposed, dislocation, exile. We are the victims of what Khartoum has called "a holy war against infidels." How long will the world let the infidels be slaughtered and enslaved in the name of jihad? How long will the world be silent to avoid offending the killers and defenders of slavery? "
Former slave Simon Deng South Sudan has managed to escape and reached the United States where he received political asylum. Human rights activist, he gives lectures around the world on the situation in Sudan, where black Christians and animists are victims of slavery and forced Islamization.
Today, Algeria had called on Arab countries to enter the Security Council of the United Nations to oppose the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant against Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir last week to answer charges of crimes against humanity.
In 2006, Simon Deng made a presentation at a symposium organized by an NGO on the victims of jihad.
Slavery is not the past ..., blog Ketibi, January 14, 2006
On April 18, 2006, while the Commission on Human Rights UN was preparing once again to reject a resolution condemning the actions to pressure Sudan on Islamic countries, three NGOs organized a symposium in conjunction with the Committee on the "victims of jihad".
In front of a room moved to tears, Simon Deng has told how he had been enslaved - because black and Christian - by the Arab Islamist regime in Khartoum:
My name is Simon Aban Deng. I am Sudanese shiluk of the tribe, by the Christian religion. My people have been subjected to mass murder, slavery, systematic rape, religious persecution, famine imposed, dislocation, exile. We are victims of genocide, physical and cultural. We were wiped out as human beings because belonging to a different culture. All that we have not stumbled upon by accident: we have been and remain victims of jihadist regime in Khartoum.
During the two genocides committed by the Islamists, our losses have been enormous. From 1955 to independence in 1973, 1.5 million Sudanese Christians have been eliminated by the pro-Arab government in Khartoum. From 1983 until the recent peace treaty, 2 million people in southern Sudan were killed in what the regime in Khartoum has called "a holy war against infidels". Yes, I am an infidel according to their definition. I think many of you are too. We, the blacks "infidels" of the South, Christians and other non-Muslims, we refused to obey Islamic laws, we refused to be Arabized.
I was kidnapped and given to an Arab family as a "gift"
For this reason, ladies and gentlemen, I have been a victim of Arab slavery in Sudan. At nine years, my village was raided by Arab troops paid by Khartoum. As I ran to take refuge in the bush to escape the massacre, I saw my childhood friends being shot down. The old and the sick were burnt alive in their hut. The Arab troops were eventually find me. I was kidnapped and given to an Arab family as a gift. When you look at me, ladies and gentlemen, you see a gift? Do I look like an object or product?
Now is the turn of Darfur.
I was a child slave for several years. I was beaten repeatedly for a yes or a no. Sometimes a whim of my children "master". I worked hard and I had to endure many humiliations. As a child I had loved in my family, I had to get used to sleeping with animals and clean the ground where I slept. I ate the leftovers in the plates of my "master". I got up first and went to bed last, after having completed all the chores. The life of a slave was like hell, but there is no shame in being a slave, it is not a choice. The one who should be ashamed is the one who proclaimed himself the "master". If anyone should feel shame, it is the fundamentalist Muslim regime in Khartoum and its allies in the Muslim world. It is important never to forget that the African Christians of southern Sudan are victims of Islamism. The war against us has been and continues to conduct in the name of jihad.
There are 2 or 3 million refugees from South Sudan. They are treated like dogs. They are not even considered citizens in Sudan because citizenship is based on religion and that only Muslims are entitled. The Africans 'infidels' of this nation are not considered full citizens, while nearly 90% of the population is black.
This is the great challenge of Jihadists in Khartoum: Sudanese and Arabs, they wanted to impose an Arab culture in a country largely populated by blacks. They have done their work very effectively with weapons supplied by their friends in the Arab world. When they committed their genocide against us in the South, the world simply looked away. When millions of black Africans were slaughtered and hundreds of thousands of Sudanese children were enslaved, the world was indifferent. Even the UN has turned its back. Now is the turn of Darfur. Some observ, but most are used to not watch ...
How long will the world let the infidels be slaughtered and enslaved in the name of jihad?
Ladies and gentlemen, I ask this as a victim of slavery in Sudan: How long murder, slavery, religious persecution, systematic rape, starvation imposed and "the ethnic and religious cleansing" going they continue? When those who have the power to act and stop these crimes will they do?
I ask for my fellow Christians and animists in southern Sudan. My voice is their voice. How long will the world let the infidels be slaughtered and enslaved in the name of jihad? How long will the world be silent to avoid offending the killers and defenders of slavery?
Link
Labels: Children, Darfur, Saudi Arabia, Sudan
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
DRC: ICC’s First Trial Focuses on Child Soldiers, by Renata Daninsky
(Brussels) - The International Criminal Court's (ICC) trial of Thomas Lubanga Dyilo, scheduled to begin on January 26, 2009 in The Hague, marks an important stage in efforts to establish responsibility for the use of children in military operations, Human Rights Watch said today. Another Congolese warlord sought by the ICC, Bosco Ntaganda, remains at large.
Lubanga, the former leader of the Union of Congolese Patriots (UPC) militia who operated in the district of Ituri in northeastern Congo, is charged with enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 as soldiers and using them to participate actively in combat between September 2002 and August 2003. Lubanga's UPC forces also carried out widespread killing, rape, and torture of thousands of civilians throughout Ituri, though to date the ICC has not charged him or any other member of the UPC with such crimes.
"This first ICC trial makes it clear that the use of children in armed combat is a war crime that can and will be prosecuted at the international level," said Param-Preet Singh, counsel in Human Rights Watch's International Justice Program. "Lubanga's UPC also slaughtered thousands, and those responsible should be held accountable for these crimes as well."
Lubanga's trial was originally scheduled to begin in June 2008. However, the judges of the trial chamber unanimously decided to stay the proceedings - suspending the trial - because the prosecution could not disclose a number of documents collected confidentially from information providers as permitted under the Rome Statute, causing concerns that Lubanga would not receive a fair trial. The prosecution worked with these information providers to address the judges' concerns, and in November 2008 the trial chamber allowed proceedings to resume.
The Ituri conflict and other conflicts in eastern Congo highlight the participation of non-Congolese forces. Ituri in particular became a battleground involving the governments of Uganda, Rwanda, and Congo. These governments provided political and military support to Congolese armed groups despite abundant evidence of their widespread violations of international humanitarian law. The ICC prosecutor, Luis Moreno Ocampo, has repeatedly stated that he will bring to justice those who bear the greatest responsibility for serious crimes.
"Getting to the root of the conflict in Ituri means that the ICC must go beyond local war lords like Lubanga," said Singh. "We look to the prosecutor to investigate those who supported Lubanga and other militias operating in Ituri, including senior officials in Kinshasa, Kigali, and Kampala."
The ICC is faced with the challenge of making sure that the proceedings are meaningful for the communities most affected by the crimes in Congo. Human Rights Watch said that the Lubanga trial is a unique opportunity that the ICC cannot afford to miss and should make every possible effort to communicate with people in Congo about important legal proceedings in The Hague. To be effective, justice must not only be done but also must be seen to be done. Human Rights Watch will be looking very closely at the court's performance to this end.
Bosco Ntaganda Still Sought by the ICC
Bosco Ntaganda, who collaborated with Lubanga as chief of military operations for the UPC, has also been charged with war crimes by the ICC but remains at large. He currently serves as the military chief of staff of the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP), a rebel group that is now collaborating with the Congolese and Rwandan national armies in military operations against a Rwandan armed group in eastern Congo.
On November 4 and 5, 2008, CNDP troops under Ntaganda's command killed an estimated 150 people in the town of Kiwanja, one of the worst massacres in North Kivu in the past two years.
In early January, Ntaganda claimed he was taking over leadership of the CNDP from its former head Laurent Nkunda, and on January 16 he declared that instead of making war on the Congolese national army, he would join its troops in fighting the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), a Rwandan armed group some of whose leaders participated in the genocide in Rwanda in 1994.
"Bosco Ntaganda is not a viable partner for the Congolese or any other government," said Singh. "He is a war crimes suspect sought by the ICC, and he should be immediately arrested, not celebrated as a partner for peace."
The Congolese government, a state party to the Rome Statute, which established the ICC, is obligated to arrest Ntaganda. Yet no such attempt was made last week when Ntaganda was in Goma alongside the Congolese minister of the interior and other senior Congolese military officers.
Background
In addition to crimes related to child soldiers, Thomas Lubanga's UPC, which purported to further the interests of the Hema ethnic group in the Ituri region of northeastern Congo, has also been involved in ethnic massacres, torture, and rape during the Ituri conflict.
In March 2006, Lubanga was arrested and transferred to the International Criminal Court in The Hague on charges involving child soldiers. In January 2007, the judges of the ICC determined that there was sufficient evidence to move forward with a trial.
This trial is the first in which victims will be allowed to participate in international criminal proceedings. More than 90 victims who have been found eligible will participate through their legal representatives. While not parties, victims have certain rights in proceedings, provided their exercise is consistent with the rights of the accused and a fair trial. This may include the right to submit evidence pertaining to Lubanga's guilt or innocence and thus contribute to the search for truth.
The ICC has charged three other Congolese warlords with crimes related to child soldiers, including Bosco Ntaganda, mentioned above. Two others, leaders of militias of ethnic groups allied with each other but rivals of Lubanga's, are in custody. They are Germain Katanga of the Ituri Patriotic Resistance Forces (FRPI), a Ngiti-based group, and Mathieu Ngudjolo, of the Nationalist and Integrationist Front (FNI), a Lendu-based militia. Both are accused of using child soldiers in attacking civilians in Bogoro village in early 2003, among other war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, sexual slavery, and rape.
Children are currently recruited and used in armed conflict in at least 15 countries and territories: Afghanistan, Burma (Myanmar), Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), India, Iraq, Occupied Palestinian Territories, Philippines, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Thailand, and Uganda. In the DRC, at least five parties to the armed conflict are known to use child soldiers. These include the Congolese army (FARDC), the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, the National Congress for the Defense of the People, pro-government Mai Mai groups, and the Lord's Resistance Army.
In addition to the ICC's cases, the Special Court for Sierra Leone has charged all nine of its original defendants, including former Liberian president Charles Taylor, with the crime of recruiting and using children under the age of 15 as soldiers. To date, the Special Court has convicted four defendants of this crime; those convicted are serving prison terms ranging from seven to 50 years. The Special Court's trial of Taylor is ongoing.
Ituri is one of the areas worst-affected by Congo's devastating wars. A local armed conflict between Hema and Lendu ethnic groups that began in 1999 was exacerbated by Ugandan military forces and through linkages to the broader conflict in the Great Lakes region. As the conflict spiraled and armed groups multiplied, more than 60,000 civilians were slaughtered in Ituri, according to the United Nations. Competition for the region's lucrative gold mines and trading routes was a major contributing factor to the fighting. Foreign armies and local militia groups - seeing control of the gold mines as a way to money, guns, and power - fought each other ruthlessly, often targeting civilians in the process. In their battles for gold, armed groups such as Lubanga's UPC were implicated in widespread ethnic slaughter, torture, and rape.
Human Rights Watch has been documenting human rights abuses committed in Ituri since 1999. Human Rights Watch published detailed reports in 2001, 2003, and 2005, as well as dozens of news releases and briefing papers detailing the widespread atrocities by all armed groups.
Link
Labels: Children, Congo, Human rights, Human Rights Watch, Renata Daninsky
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
DR Congo: Protect Children From Rape and Recruitment, by Renata Daninsky
(New York, December 16, 2008) - The UN Security Council should respond to escalating violations against children in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, including the recruitment of child soldiers and sexual violence, said Human Rights Watch in a letter sent on December 10, 2008, to Security Council members. The Security Council's working group on children and armed conflict is expected to meet this week to consider action on this issue.
At least 175 children have been forcibly recruited into armed service since heavy fighting resumed in August between the Congolese army (FARDC) and the rebel group led by Laurent Nkunda, the National Congress for the Defense of the People (CNDP). There are reports that the number may be much higher. Scores of girls have been raped by parties to the conflict. Human Rights Watch observed some of these abuses in a visit last week.
"We wish Security Council members could have been with our researchers," said Jo Becker, children's rights advocate at Human Rights Watch. "The sight of drugged children carrying AK-47s might convince them that they should take stronger action to end the recruitment and rape of children and hold the guilty parties accountable."
Human Rights Watch researchers visited Nyamilima and Ishasha in North Kivu province, where they saw at least 30 children guarding barricades and patrolling the streets with weapons they could barely carry. Some were as young as 12, and four were girls. They were operating in areas now controlled by Mai Mai militias and the Rwandan armed group, the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
In some areas of Rutshuru and Masisi territories in North Kivu, Nkunda's rebels and other armed groups have gone door-to-door to force young boys and adults, some as young as 14, into their service. In other areas the group has recruited boys as young as 12 near displaced persons' camps. Some have been sent into combat without military training.
Pro-government Mai Mai groups recruited dozens of children for military service in late October, and the Congolese army has also recruited children to transport and distribute weapons.
Worldwide, 14 parties to armed conflict have been identified since 2002 by the UN secretary-general for consistent and repeated violations of international laws that prohibit the recruitment and use of child soldiers. Four of these "persistent violators" are currently recruiting children in the DRC - the Congolese army (FARDC), the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), pro-government Mai Mai groups, and the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA).
"Tragically, many of the children recently taken are ‘re-recruits,' who have already gone through demobilization programs," said Becker. "These programs are too brief, and the children urgently need more support and protection from being recruited again once they return to their families."
Human Rights Watch has also documented rapes of girls and women by Congolese army soldiers and by combatants of the CNDP, FDLR and Mai Mai militias. Dozens of women and girls from Nyamilima and Ishasha have been raped in recent weeks by Mai Mai combatants, including girls as young as 9 years old, attacked while working in the fields or sleeping in their houses at night. Some witnesses credit FDLR combatants with trying to restrain Mai Mai abuses, but in many areas both groups have collaborated in attacks.
Nkunda's soldiers raped at least 16 women and girls in late October and November following their takeover of Rutshuru and Kiwanja. Congolese army soldiers fleeing an advance by the group raped more than a dozen women and girls as they fled Goma on October 29.
Tens of thousands of women and girls have been raped since the war began in 1998, and a recent report from the secretary-general found that between June 2007 and June 2008, the UN recorded 5,517 cases of sexual violence against children in Ituri and North and South Kivu - 31 percent of all sexual violence victims.
Human Rights Watch called on the European Union to urgently send a "bridging" force to eastern Congo to help UN peacekeepers stop further attacks on civilians, including children. Human Rights Watch wrote (http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2008/12/09/european-union-deploy-bringing-force-north-kivu-eastern-drc ) to EU heads of state on December 9, asking them to deploy such a force quickly in eastern Congo following an earlier request from UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to the EU.
Human Rights Watch urged the Security Council to:
- Take measures, including additional sanctions, against parties responsible for the recruitment and use of child soldiers, and rape and sexual violence;
- Urge members of the Security Council and governments in the region to apprehend individuals wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), including the CNDP chief of staff, Bosco Ntaganda, who is accused by the ICC of crimes relating to child soldiers in Ituri in 2002 and 2003; and
- Ensure that UNICEF, the UN peacekeeping mission MONUC, and other relevant UN agencies receive adequate resources and personnel to promote the demobilization and reintegration of child soldiers, including girls associated with armed groups.
Statements by children
(All names below have been changed to protect the children's privacy.)
Anthony
Anthony was one of an estimated 50 children and dozens of adults forcibly recruited in mid-September by rival forces, CNDP and PARECO, just outside the displaced persons' camp in Ngungu (Masisi territory). His family had fled to Ngungu days earlier, after the two groups fought in their home village, Numbi:
"Five CNDP soldiers stopped me on the road in the middle of the day. They sent me with a large group of other men and boys - some as young as 12, others as old as 40 - to Murambi, where they said we would transport boxes of ammunition for the rebel soldiers. They beat us badly so we couldn't resist. When we got to Murambi, they didn't order us to transport boxes, but instead gave us military uniforms and taught us how to use weapons. Then, after three days, they put us all in an underground prison. We stayed there for four days, and new recruits joined us every day. On the fourth day, they called us out of the prison and took us to Karuba. That night, I managed to escape with two other recruits, and we ran all the way back to Ngungu. The others who remained behind were sent to Kitchanga for military training."
When Anthony and the others arrived in Ngungu, they sought refuge at the MONUC base. Like many fighters who choose to disarm or who escape forced recruitment, they were handed over to Congolese authorities, who sent them to the military intelligence prison in Goma (known as the T2) as a transit point on their way to demobilization camps. Detainees are often held at T2 for weeks or months without charge and are subjected to cruel and degrading treatment; some are tortured. After five days without eating, Anthony managed to escape and sought refuge at a MONUC base in Goma.
"I want to go back to our home in Numbi," Anthony said. "But I'm scared. If the CNDP soldiers find me there, they will kill me."
Marie
Marie is a 16-year-old girl who was raped by a CNDP soldier in a farm outside Rutshuru on October 29, just after the group took control of the town:
"The day the CNDP arrived in Rutshuru, they pillaged my neighborhood and shot and killed two boys, so I decided to flee to Goma. I ran through the farms on the edge of Rutshuru and met two Tutsi soldiers with guns and spears. They stopped me in the farm. I was alone. One of the soldiers spoke Kinyarwanda, and the other spoke Swahili. They said, ‘We're going to kill you.' Then they put a knife on my arm. I said, ‘No, please pardon me.' Then they said, ‘The only way we can pardon you is if we rape you.' They cut my clothes off with the knife. One of the soldiers raped me from 4 p.m. until 7 p.m. There was blood everywhere. Then when the second soldier wanted to start, there were lots of gunshots nearby and they left, saying that if I fled they would kill me. After that, I managed to escape and made it to Kibati [a large displacement camp outside Goma]. I'm still in a lot of pain, but I don't have any medicine and there's no one here to treat me."
Liliane
Liliane lives in a displaced persons camp in Rutshuru. She was raped when she went back to her village to look for something to eat:
"One time, when I tried to go back to my village, the FDLR stopped me and raped me. They took me on the side of the road, near the village Buhuga. There were eight FDLR combatants. I was with seven other girls. All of us were raped. The other girls were from my village, but they don't live in this camp. They took us at 2 p.m. and let us go the next day at 4 p.m. We spent the night with them and then they let us go. One soldier raped me; there was one soldier for each girl. They abused us badly. They used their weapons to threaten us, but they didn't use them against us. I was 17 years old when this happened. The other girls were 16, 17, and 18 years old. I studied until the sixth primary level, but I can't study now that I'm displaced. I just want the FDLR and the CNDP to leave so I can return home and continue my life."
Labels: Children, Congo, Human rights, Human Rights Watch, Renata Daninsky
Monday, December 15, 2008
Quebec - Children suspended for boycotting the course of ethics and religious culture, by Renata Daninsky
For the Government, parents are irresponsible idiots ...
Here is the testimony of a parent who fled Algeria to escape Islam and who does not know of an ECR for his children:
"I had 8 000 km, without a penny to put my two children from Islam. I made a vacuum around me and I eliminated any of my relations who can tell them the good of the religion. Now we will serve them in school. They say that Christianity and Islam is the same message, but said differently. "
"They say that Jesus and Mohammed are equal and are all 2 of chic types and that Christians and Muslims should not quibble. It does not say that seeks chicane. They say that Jews and Muslims are brothers who are wrong to quibble and should live in harmony in Palestine as Andalusia and potatoes and potatoes. "
"Sooner or later, my children know my opinion or ask me questions. I then go to them for a liar and a villain. I had full opportunity to live this situation in Algeria, without needing to cross an ocean. I'm back to square one after 8000 km and years of toil. My God, no! it will not again. I'm exhausted. "
****
The absent are suspended
(Granby) The management of the school-Joseph-Hermas Leclerc Granby tough with students who are boycotting the course of ethics and religious culture. A fourth secondary student was suspended yesterday and five others received notice of suspension for next week. This is the beginning of a battle between the parents of these young people and the school board of Val-des-Cerfs.
Jonathan Gagné has been suspended for failing 20 hours of an ethics and religious culture (ECR). Since the beginning of the year, the teenager avoids the course, with the blessing of his parents.
So that he can return to class, they must sign a contract for reinstatement with the school. In the document, parents commit to compel their children to attend during RWCE.
"We will not sign the contract, says his mother, Diane Gagné, which is convened to school Monday morning. It continues to withdraw our son's progress. "
Expulsion
Without the label of his parents, Jonathan risk expulsion. The school board of Val-des-Cerfs confirms that it will apply the penalties prescribed in the Code of school life-H. J. Leclerc-against absenteeism.
"We have an obligation to put forward the basic school, said the general manager of the school board, Alain Lecours. A student absent, even partially, violates this rule. We must crack down. "
Sanctions code of life depend on the number of missed periods. They range from verbal warning to withdrawal from school, from suspensions of various durations.
According to the Education Act, a parent shall take the necessary means for their child attends school. "If the parent does not sign the contract for reinstatement, we're in a gray area, said Lecours. We can not readmit the young. It requires that parents find a solution with the school. "
Diane Gagné condemns this position. "We expect that Jonathan is deported Monday, regrets she says. It is very difficult, because it does not reverse its decision and neither have we. Especially since we have no real alternative than to change school or move to another province. "
As Jonathan 16, it could also attend adult school.
Non-motivated absences
The son of Linda Foisy, Xavier and Pierre-Elijah Lasnier, respectively will be suspended Monday and Tuesday. Like Diane Gagné, it will not sign for his children return to their being RWCE.
"I appeal to school almost every morning to justify their absence from the course, she says. The problem is that schools are considered as non-motivated absences. It calls into question my authority of a parent. They do not understand that this course was, it does not want to! "
The Coalition for Freedom in Education (CLE), a group of parents who oppose during RWCE, denounced this policy of school-J.-H. Leclerc.
"It's completely arbitrary. A student who is two weeks in Switzerland to ski with his parents will no reasoned, "is outraged spokesman Richard Decarie. According to him, the only honorable for the school board to resolve the impasse is to accept to exempt students. He argues that even if the price of RCT is mandatory, it is not necessary for graduation from high school.
Values
The Director General of the school board of Val-des-Cerfs contends that the school is within its rights to refuse to motivate young people absences.
"Their parents have already made requests for exemption to the school board for being RWCE and they were all rejected, said Alain Lecours. We know that this is not the code of life problem. The substantive debate is the values and beliefs. "
Labels: Children, Québec, Religion and fanaticism, Renata Daninsky
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Teachers 'beat and abuse' Muslim children in British Koran classes, by Iba Bouramine
Muslim children are being beaten and abused regularly by teachers at some British madrassas - Islamic evening classes - an investigation by The Times has found.
Students have been slapped, punched and had their ears twisted, according to an unpublished report by an imam based on interviews with victims in the north of England. One was “picked up by one leg and spun around” while another said a madrassa teacher was “kicking in my head - like a football”, says the report which was compiled by Irfan Chishti, a former government adviser on Islamic affairs.
Almost 1,600 madrassas operate in Britain, teaching Arabic and the Koran on weekday evenings to about 200,000 children aged from four to their mid-teens.
While there is no hard evidence to indicate how many are involved in the physical abuse of children, The Times has uncovered a disturbing pattern in one town - Rochdale - through interviews with mainstream school teachers, Muslim parents and the children themselves.
One woman told The Times that her niece Hiba, 7, was slapped across the face so hard by her madrassa teacher that her ear was cut. It later became inflamed and she had to have emergency medical treatment.
When the teacher refused to apologise, Hiba's aunt, Jamila, insisted that her niece should be moved to another madrassa. “I have absolutely no respect for religious teachers who behave like this,” she said.
Another girl described how, at the age of 12, she was hit by her madrassa teacher whenever she mispronounced a word or forgot a verse of the Koran.
When Imam Chishti, a religious education teacher who also runs the Light of Islam Academy in Rochdale, decided to carry out his own investigation into the problem he was shocked by how even the victims had grown to accept the abuse. “They all joked about it,” he said. “There's a culture that accepts it.”
Imam Chishti said that part of the problem was that some madrassa teachers were ignorant of British law. Corporal punishment was banned in state schools in 1986 and in all schools in 1998. Under current law teachers acting in loco parentis may use only “reasonable punishment” such as a smack, providing it does not cause any marks or bruising.
But the abuse discovered by The Times investigation goes far beyond what could be termed “reasonable force”. One particularly brutal form of punishment practised in some madrassas is known as the Hen, in which the victim is forced to hold his ears while squatting with his arms fed through his legs.
The magnitude of the problem in Rochdale has led primary school head teachers to break the silence surrounding the problem. Several disclosed that they had asked social services to investigate complaints of physical abuse in madrassas made by pupils but that the victims' parents refused to press charges against the perpetrators either because they felt that physical abuse was normal practice or they feared being ostracised by their community.
Tina Wheatley, deputy head of Heybrook Primary School, said: “If a child comes in with an injury of any sort and it's non-accidental, then schools will refer it to parents, then also to child protection.”
But she said that social workers were often faced by parents who refused to take action against the abusers. “When child protection turns up at the parents' [home], parents don't want to take it any further. There are a lot of head teachers in this area who have spoken to the authorities. It's so sensitive,” she said.
Sandra Hartley, head teacher at Brimrod County Primary School in Rochdale, where 93 per cent of pupils are Muslim, said that she feared that some Muslim parents regarded physical beatings as normal because they had been subjected to the same treatment when they were children.
“You know, it's very much accepted that children are experiencing that type of coercion, unfair treatment and sometimes physical abuse,” she said. “Parents knowing that this is happening and not wanting to move their child from that type of extra-curricular activity is very much the pattern that we have here.”
The Times has also learnt that Rochdale police and social services have met local Muslim leaders six times this year to discuss child protection issues after investigations prompted by claims of physical abuse at madrassas.
Terry Piggott, the executive director of Rochdale Borough Council, admitted that it was difficult for the authorities to take action.
“Because of the rapid turnover of volunteer teachers at madrassas - and the fact that many are part-time - it makes it difficult to regulate and monitor the people who are working with local young people,” he said in a statement.
The problem is not confined to Rochdale. Ann Cryer, Labour MP for the Yorkshire constituency of Keighley which has a large Muslim population, said that mainstream teachers had complained to her about the punishment their students faced at madrassas. She added her voice to those from Muslim community calling for madrassas to be brought within the regulatory framework.“I think we should have some sort of review at a very high level as to how madrassas are being [run] ... they seem to be a law unto themselves,” she said.
Madrassas and similar religious classes are not subject to any regulation nor are their teachers required to be vetted by the Criminal Records Bureau. Many madrassas are not even known to the authorities because they are run on an ad hoc basis by people in their own living rooms. Even those attached to a mosque which is registered with the Charities Commission are not monitored.
Ms Cryer called for the authorities to be given powers to perform “spot checks” on madrassas and shut down any in which children are being abused.“As the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities grow so do the number of madrassas and therefore the risk to children increases every year,” she said.
The Mosques and Imams National Advisory Board (Minab) - a government approved organisation established in 2006 - has set up a minimum standard for mosques which includes guidelines to safeguard child welfare. However, membership is purely voluntary and Minab has yet to recruit a single mosque.
A spokesman for the board, Yousif Al-Khoei, admitted that some mosques were run by teachers who may be abusing children.
“There is of course a minority of madrassas which have a village mindset who may be practising it but you have to look at it from both angles,” he said. “No community is perfect.”
The Minister for Community Cohesion, Sadiq Khan, urged his fellow Muslims to turn in those responsible for violence against children.
“We need to have religious leaders saying in clear and religious messages that it's unacceptable and that there's no place in Islam for child abuse. It's pure village culture mentality,” he said. “Everybody should expose this. The neighbours who know about it should expose it, the teachers [at mainstream schools] should expose it. We need a culture which says that whistleblowing on these things is a badge of pride not a badge of shame.”
He added: “We are hiding behind the defence of cultural sensitivities and our children are not being protected.”
The Department for Children, Schools and Families said: “We're crystal clear that all organisations, including faith-based, must abide by children protection and safeguarding laws.
“Any actions that go beyond reasonable punishment are absolutely unacceptable and must be dealt with the courts. We urge anyone who is aware of such incidents to report them to the police and relevant authorities.”
Link
Labels: Children, Iba Bouramine, United Kingdom
Monday, December 01, 2008
Nine out of ten children denied HIV/AIDS treatment, by Renata Daninsky
Nine out of ten children with HIV do not have access to life-saving antiretroviral drugs. Governments and donors need to be more ambitious in bringing existing pediatric HIV tests and drugs to the children who need them, says the medical humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF). This lack of treatment is particularly threatening for babies who are born with the virus because half of them will die before their second birthday if untreated.
An estimated 1.9 million children are in need of antiretroviral treatment, but only around 200,000 are able to get the medicines they need. MSF calls on governments and donors to roll out existing tests faster, and to considerably increase the use of a pediatric version of a standard fixed-dose combination (FDC) drug – a pill that combines all needed drugs in one tablet.
“It was when we introduced this easy-to-use pill that we were able to boost the number of children on antiretroviral treatment in our projects,” said Dr Tido von Schoen-Angerer, Director of MSF's Campaign for Access to Essential Medicines. “We are showing that HIV care for children is possible. We challenge governments and donors to set ambitious goals and stop abandoning the majority of children with HIV to their fate.”
In wealthy countries, pediatric HIV infection has nearly been eliminated through successful prevention of mother-to-child transmission which is why HIV in children is almost entirely a problem of poor countries. Companies see little financial incentives in developing easier tests and newer drugs for children with HIV.
“We can treat today but we also need more child-friendly drugs and diagnostics. Most of the life-saving medicines exist only in adult versions. This needs to change,” said Dr von Schoen-Angerer. “Drug companies should pledge to come up with and test easy-to-use pediatric versions of all their HIV medicines or governments will need to pressure them to do this.”
The lack of a simple HIV test hampers children’s access to HIV care, as the detection of the infection is a pre-condition to start treatment. Currently a complicated DNA-based test requiring transport of blood samples to advanced laboratories remains the only option for diagnosing infants.
The vast majority of children become infected with HIV through transmission from the mother during pregnancy, childbirth or breastfeeding. Greater efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission are crucial. Meanwhile, the two million children already infected need care.
During the last five years, nearly 10,000 children under the age of 15 were started on antiretroviral therapy in MSF’s programs worldwide, 4,000 are children under five years of age.
Video: World AIDS Day – 01 December 2008
Improved paediatric formulations of anti-retroviral medicines are needed to treat HIV-positive children. Footage from MSF's HIV/AIDS treatment program in the Mathare slum of Nairobi, Kenya.
Link
Labels: Children, Doctors Without Borders, Renata Daninsky
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Nepal: End Torture of Children in Police Custody, by Renata Daninsky
(New York, November 18, 2008) – The Nepali government should urgently address the widespread torture and ill-treatment of children in police custody, Human Rights Watch said today in a statement marking Nepali Children’s Day on November 20. So far in 2008, Human Rights Watch has received credible claims of more than 200 cases of torture or abuse committed by members of the Nepali police against boys and girls, some as young as 13.
“The Nepali police have a duty to protect children and to prevent crime,” said Bede Sheppard, Asia researcher for Human Rights Watch’s Children’s Rights Division. “Instead, by torturing children in custody they are committing crimes against those they are supposed to be protecting.”
According to a large number of consistent and reliable reports, including first-person testimony from children, the most common methods of torture police use on children include: kicking; fist blows to the body; inserting metal nails under children’s toenails; and hitting the soles of feet, thighs, upper arms, backs of hands, and the back with bamboo sticks and plastic pipes.
Most children abused by the police are suspected of committing petty crimes, or are children living or working on the streets.
“Sometimes, the torture is inflicted to extract confessions from the children,” Sheppard said. “While at other times it appears to be carried out purely for the entertainment of the official.”
Torture is prohibited under Nepal’s Constitution, but is not defined as a crime under the country’s civil code (Nepal’s criminal law is part of its civil code). The torture of children is, however, illegal under article 7 of the Children’s Act, though the maximum penalty is just one year’s imprisonment and a fine.
Human Rights Watch said that despite the widespread nature of abuses against children in police custody, no government official has ever been prosecuted for the torture of children under the Children’s Act.
“It’s unusual to find a country where torture has not at least been recognized as a crime in its basic criminal law,” Sheppard said. “Given the widespread and credible nature of the allegations of torture in police custody, and the fact that the Children’s Act allows the government to prosecute torturers of children, it is also surprising that not a single police officer has been prosecuted for this offense.”
Human Rights Watch also expressed concern about the conditions children face while in custody. Children are generally not separated from adults while in detention as required under international law, and thus face a greater risk of being assaulted by other prisoners. Children also lack access to adequate medical facilities and legal assistance, and some face long periods – sometimes many days – of arbitrary detention.
One first-person testimony obtained by Human Rights Watch came from a 15-year-old boy who was routinely abused over a period of four days by police officers from three different police stations in Sunsari District in January 2008. The boy, who was arrested on suspicion of being involved in a robbery, explained:
“As I denied their accusations, [two unidentified police personnel] started beating me with a green plastic pipe and a bamboo stick on my hands, legs, and all over my body. Then, they forced me to lie on the floor with my legs on the table and started beating me on my feet. While beating, they asked some questions such as ‘Who was involved in robbery?’ and ‘What are their names?’…. They tortured and interrogated me for about one hour.”
The next day, the same boy was transferred to a different police station, where he said he was again abused:
“Some five or six unidentified police personnel asked me the same questions as [I had been asked the] previous day. As soon as I stated that I was not involved in the robbery, they started beating me with a plastic pipe, a silver pipe, and a bamboo stick all over my body. They even punched and kicked me with their boots. After a while, they placed a pistol on my temple and threatened to shoot me dead in an encounter. Then, they forced me to admit my involvement in the robbery.... They forced me to lie on the floor and one police man put his legs with boots on my chest and another sat on my head and the next police officer started beating me on my feet, legs, and all over my body with sticks. Then, they forced me to jump up and down on the floor for seven to ten minutes and again started beating me. I was beaten and interrogated simultaneously [over a two-hour period].”
Forcing victims to jump up and down is a tactic often used in Nepal to get blood circulating with the intention of lessening the physical evidence of torture.
Human Rights Watch urged the Nepali government to mark Children’s Day by making a clear statement that police torture is absolutely prohibited, and that any police officer involved should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
“If the government takes children’s rights seriously, then it should use Children’s Day to condemn police torture of children and bring the perpetrators to justice,” Sheppard said. “Nepal’s government should commit that by next year’s Children’s Day, torture will be a criminal offence, punishable with a proportionate penalty.”
Link
Labels: Children, Human Rights Watch, Nepal, Renata Daninsky
Monday, November 10, 2008
Spain: Give Migrant Children Legal Aid, by Renata Daninsky
(Brussels, October 17, 2008) – Spain’s accelerating effort to send back unaccompanied children who enter the country illegally might subject them to danger, ill-treatment and detention, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The government needs to halt repatriations until it has a process to ensure their well-being, and, as an immediate step, give them the same right to an independent lawyer that adult migrants have under Spanish law.
The 22-page report, “Returns at Any Cost: Spain’s Push to Repatriate Unaccompanied Children in the Absence of Safeguards,” says that in Andalusia, the southern region that is a common entry point for migrants, authorities have said they intend to send up to 1,000 unaccompanied children in their custody to Morocco, claiming that safeguards are in place. But officials could not explain how they determined it was in a child’s best interest to return, as required by law. They also said that the Moroccan government’s agreement to take a child back was in itself a sufficient guarantee of the child’s well-being after return.
“Spain is taking a chance with these children’s safety,” said Simone Troller, children’s rights researcher in Europe for Human Rights Watch. “Why deny these especially vulnerable children more safeguards, including the same right to an independent lawyer that adult migrants have?”
On October 20, 2008, Spain is scheduled to appear before the United Nations Human Rights Committee, which will review the government’s implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In its official report to the committee, however, the Spanish government does not address its efforts to repatriate children who enter the country without parents or caregivers, though research by Human Rights Watch and other organizations has shown that it routinely violated their rights under the ICCPR when returning them.
In repatriation decisions, government officials fail to analyze or even collect information about what could happen to these children in their home countries, Human Rights Watch researchers found. In many cases children are not allowed to be heard as officials consider whether to send them back. Spanish courts have stopped at least two dozen repatriations in the past two years because the process violated the country’s own laws.
Although Spain provides adults facing deportation with lawyers, it denies legal assistance to children. Instead, they are represented by the same body that often proposes to deport them. The government has tried to block pro bono lawyers who have taken up a minority of children’s cases on appeal.
“More than any other migrants, children who come to Spain alone need lawyers to protect their interests,” Troller said. “Spain should provide children with legal aid, just like it does adults.”
Most of the children who arrive unaccompanied come from Morocco. Spain’s strategy to speed up the return of unaccompanied children to Morocco and Senegal, another country from which hundreds of unaccompanied children arrived to the Canary Islands, has led it to conclude bilateral readmission agreements followed by high-level meetings with both countries. It has also financed the construction of residential reception facilities for children in Morocco.
But Human Rights Watch and other international and Spanish nongovernmental organizations have repeatedly documented Spanish and Moroccan abuses of unaccompanied children during and following returns to Morocco. Instead of being reunited with their families, Moroccan security officials turned children out onto the streets and left them to fend for themselves.
“Spain must investigate what children will face upon return before deciding whether to send the child back,” Troller said.
Human Rights Watch urged Spain to:
Provide all unaccompanied children with competent independent legal assistance throughout repatriation proceedings;
Adopt regulations that clearly state the government’s obligation to carry out an individualized best interest determination and a risk assessment before deciding to repatriate a child, as well as specific procedures to be followed and standards to be met; and,
Put in place procedures for regular public reporting about how the readmission agreements for unaccompanied children with Morocco and Senegal are being carried out, and allow for independent monitoring of these agreements.
Link
In repatriation decisions, government officials fail to analyze or even collect information about what could happen to these children in their home countries, Human Rights Watch researchers found. In many cases children are not allowed to be heard as officials consider whether to send them back. Spanish courts have stopped at least two dozen repatriations in the past two years because the process violated the country’s own laws.
Although Spain provides adults facing deportation with lawyers, it denies legal assistance to children. Instead, they are represented by the same body that often proposes to deport them. The government has tried to block pro bono lawyers who have taken up a minority of children’s cases on appeal.
“More than any other migrants, children who come to Spain alone need lawyers to protect their interests,” Troller said. “Spain should provide children with legal aid, just like it does adults.”
Most of the children who arrive unaccompanied come from Morocco. Spain’s strategy to speed up the return of unaccompanied children to Morocco and Senegal, another country from which hundreds of unaccompanied children arrived to the Canary Islands, has led it to conclude bilateral readmission agreements followed by high-level meetings with both countries. It has also financed the construction of residential reception facilities for children in Morocco.
But Human Rights Watch and other international and Spanish nongovernmental organizations have repeatedly documented Spanish and Moroccan abuses of unaccompanied children during and following returns to Morocco. Instead of being reunited with their families, Moroccan security officials turned children out onto the streets and left them to fend for themselves.
“Spain must investigate what children will face upon return before deciding whether to send the child back,” Troller said.
Human Rights Watch urged Spain to:
Provide all unaccompanied children with competent independent legal assistance throughout repatriation proceedings;
Adopt regulations that clearly state the government’s obligation to carry out an individualized best interest determination and a risk assessment before deciding to repatriate a child, as well as specific procedures to be followed and standards to be met; and,
Put in place procedures for regular public reporting about how the readmission agreements for unaccompanied children with Morocco and Senegal are being carried out, and allow for independent monitoring of these agreements.
Link
Labels: Children, Human Rights Watch, Morocco, Renata Daninsky, Senegal, Spain
Thursday, October 23, 2008
UN Urged to Ban Executions of Juvenile Offenders, by Renata Daninsky
As UN member states begin three days of debate on the rights of the child, more than 300 nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from 82 countries called on the UN General Assembly to take urgent action to end executions for crimes committed by children, Human Rights Watch said today.
The vast majority of states enforce the absolute prohibition on the death penalty for individuals who committed crimes as children, in compliance with international law. But the overall number of such executions has been rising. Five countries – Iran, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Pakistan and Yemen – have carried out 32 of these executions since January 2005, and have well over 100 other juvenile offenders on death row.
“Groups from all over the world are saying that these executions are an outrage,” said Clarisa Bencomo, researcher on children’s rights for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch. “The General Assembly should demand that countries stop these killings immediately and pass reforms so that no one is ever again executed for a crime committed as a child.”
Iran has been at the forefront of the recent rise in executions of juvenile offenders. Between 2000 and 2004, five states are known to have executed 18 juvenile offenders, with the nine executions in the United States and five in Iran accounting for the majority. The United States ended the juvenile death penalty in March 2005, but since January 2005, Iran has been responsible for 26 of the 32 executions of juvenile offenders worldwide. NGOs in all five countries that currently execute juvenile offenders are among those seeking General Assembly action, and the Iranian Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi endorsed their statement.
On October 15, 2008, the UN General Assembly will begin its annual debate on the rights of the child. Past General Assembly resolutions have included a broad call for states to comply with their international treaty obligations to end the juvenile death penalty, but with language so general that even states that execute juvenile offenders supported the measures.
The NGO petition is co-sponsored by the Child Rights Information Network and Human Rights Watch. The petition urges UN member states to recognize the urgency of the current situation by calling for an immediate moratorium on all executions of juvenile offenders and commutation of existing death sentences to custodial or other sentences in conformity with international juvenile justice standards. States that prohibit the death penalty for juvenile offenders should ensure that essential safeguards are in place so that children are not mistakenly sentenced to death. These safeguards should include legal assistance, universal birth registration and training for judges and prosecutors in juvenile justice.
The petition also calls on the General Assembly to request a report from the UN secretary-general on all states’ compliance with the absolute ban on the juvenile death penalty, including information on the number of juvenile offenders currently on death row and the number executed during the last five years. Such a study would be an important tool in identifying good practices that states can use in implementing the absolute prohibition on these executions and to set benchmarks for moving toward full compliance.
“The General Assembly should adopt strong, detailed recommendations on the steps states should take to implement the prohibition on the juvenile death penalty, and then follow up to monitor states’ actions,” Bencomo said. “It is unconscionable that, in some countries, children are facing execution because they lacked birth certificates or didn’t have lawyers during investigation and trial.”
The text of the petition and a list of the 305 groups that have signed it are available in Arabic, English, Farsi, French, Japanese, and Spanish.
Labels: Children, Human Rights Watch, Renata Daninsky, UN
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