A compilation of extracts from ngo reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child relating to violence against children This document is an annex to the publication
GHANA West & Central Africa No report available on the CRIN. GREECE
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GHANAWest & Central Africa No report available on the CRIN. GREECEEurope and Central Asia CRC Session 29, 14 January - 1 February 2002Amnesty International - Greek Section – English www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/crc.29/greece_ngo_report.doc […]
The results of the study81 show that 65.5% of parents use physical punishment, while younger children (first graders) are 3 times more in danger to be punished compared to older children (sixth graders). Moreover, children with siblings are physically punished twice as often compared to only children. In 6% of the cases, spanking led to physical injury, while 1.8% were injured severely enough to need medical treatment or hospitalization. It should be noted that 90% of the parents believe that physical punishment is negatively affecting parent-child relations and also has severe effects on the child. […]
On page 85 of the National Report (section a), it should be added that official statistics do not record deaths of children from non-accidental injuries (abuse-neglect), except in the case of a child’s murder. It has been estimated that a considerable number of deaths of children under 1 year described as “from various diseases” are due to some severe form(s) of maltreatment.82 [...] There are significant delays in the reunification process of unaccompanied, refugee, asylum-seeker children with their parents, due to bureaucracy. […] Illicit transfer of minors could involve trafficking of minors, sexual and/or labour exploitation. Efforts are being made regarding the implementation of the ratified Hague Convention (1980) concerning civil law issues on child abduction, but there are still a lot of difficulties in practice. […] Children, who are both handicapped and rejected by their families, are in the worst situation, mainly because they are under the complete responsibility of the state –as the “parent”- without natural parents to advocate for their rights. There is a great need for de-institutionalisation of the children that have been abandoned by their families. […] Children with special needs have no possibility to attend secondary schools because there are only primary special schools. […] It should be noted that 19.5% of Greeks live under the minimum poverty standard.83 […] Despite the available international and national legislation84, as regards the substantive and procedural guarantees regulating one’s detention, aliens including minors who apply for asylum, after their arrest for illegal entry or residence in Greece, remain detained until the final examination of their asylum application. Their detention takes place in detention centres for indefinite periods of time, without being subjected to any judicial review. These detention centres are designed and equipped for a short period of detention and their conditions as described by the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment are inappropriate for long periods of detention, lacking basic facilities and infrastructure. In many detention centres, particularly at border areas, where there are massive group arrivals, there is no special department designated for minors. In the Greater Athens area, apart from the detention place designated for minors at the Alexandras General Directorate, minors are also detained in Amygdaleza Detention Centre, when they are accompanied by their mothers. It has to be noted though, that both detention places are not appropriately designed and equipped to accommodate minors. In the recent case of Dogouz v. Greece the European Court for Human Rights concluded that “... the serious overcrowding and absence of sleeping facilities, combined with the inordinate length of period during which he was detained in such conditions, amounted to degrading treatment contrary to Article 3 [of the European Convention on Human Rights]...”. The aforementioned conclusion applies the foremost to minors, who happen to be in a much more vulnerable position. […]
Child labour does exist in Greece. But it is very hard even to estimate how many child labourers exist, since in Greece -as in the rest of Europe- child labour is not open to the “public eye”. Poverty is obviously at the core of the child labour problem in Greece, as in so many other countries. Usually the families of these children are too poor to afford not to send their children out to work. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Press Release of 08.02.2001) estimates that in Greece there are some 80,000 adolescents aged 14 to 19 who are ‘helping their family’ and work -which is permitted by the law under certain circumstances- but the number of the youngsters, who face harsh conditions or are forced to work without pay, is considered to be much higher (because these figures do not include child labourers without employment contract or permission, those working in family businesses or private households and the children of economic migrants, Muslims and gypsies). The most common sectors where children are employed are agriculture (63,4%), fishing, wholesale and retail trade, street trade, repair of motor vehicles, manufacturing (garment industry mostly), construction, sports, hotels and restaurants. Since many children help out in family businesses and farms and with family animals, a labour force activity rate for children is relatively high in poorer rural areas. The Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs also believes there are some 5,000 children under 14 who are made to work in Greece, but we think this is an underestimation. A recent study85 found there are an estimated 5,800 street children between the age of 2 and 15 in Greece, well known as the ‘traffic lights kids’. These youngsters -dressed in shabby clothing- clean car windows or sell tissues and flowers for spare change at busy intersections, restaurants, coffee-shops and public spaces. The vast majority of these children are Greek gypsies, Albanians, Greeks and Greek Muslims. […]
It should be noted that sexual abuse is still a social taboo, with the majority of cases in hiding. The systematic recording of cases brought to social/legal services, would only reveal a portion of the extent of the “best kept secret” in today’s society. Therapy to offenders, especially to juvenile ones, is not provided as an alternative to the penal sentence. The traditional way of dealing with disclosed cases is to remove the child from the family and place it into care, with doubtful long-term planning. […]
There is serious evidence and police data on the trafficking, sale and abduction of children from neighbouring countries, especially Albania, for purposes of exploitation of all types, including sexual exploitation. Trafficking in women and girls for prostitution in Greece has increased sharply in recent years. A survey, carried out from September 1995 to March 1997 in Athens86, revealed the presence of around 3,000 children and young persons involved in prostitution and the forced provision of sexual services. […]
The alleged recorded cases of torture and ill-treatment by law enforcement officials are not that rare to be considered as “accidental”. The dark figure of this phenomenon does not allow for valid statistical data. The core principle is that, even a single substantiated complaint suffices to generate mobilisation, in order for the problem to be dealt accordingly. The last incident that shocked the whole Greece was the severe beating of a 16 year-old migrant which resulted in the rupture of his spleen. Such practices lead to the annulment of the relevant safeguards. […]
The poor quality of provisions for young delinquents often leads to violations of their basic rights. The number of NGOs for the social support and rehabilitation of young delinquents is increasing, exerting pressure for improvements in collaboration with the competent national Ministries. […]
According to the above mentioned research, from 287 juvenile detainees at Avlona Juvenile Detention Centre, 120 were awaiting trial (percentage 42%). A significant number of them (29) were awaiting trial for theft. However, according to the provisions of the Greek Criminal Procedure Code, juveniles offenders cannot be detained awaiting trial, unless they are accused of having committed crimes punishable with at least ten years imprisonment. There are therefore cases of unlawful juvenile detention which the Greek Government should stop and should provide appropriate reparation. […]
Greece does not suffer from a lack of legislation protecting the rights of the child. What Greece does suffer from is a lack of implementation and enforcement of these laws. This is evident in the area of education, where compulsory education laws exist but are not enforced, in the area of the juvenile justice system, where safeguards to protect minors during arrest are not followed, and in child labor, where 5,800 children between the ages of 2 and 15 work on the streets every day, despite laws prohibiting child labor. GRENADAThe Caribbean No report available on the CRIN. GUATEMALAThe Americas CRC Session 27, 21 May - 8 June 2001 Coordinadora Institucional de Promocion por los Derechos del Nino (CIPRODENI) – English http://www.crin.org/docs/resources/treaties/crc.27/Guatemala-english.pdf The impact on the country of the lack of operatisation of the Convention and the lack of a local legal framework is the postponement of satisfying the needs of children and youth, which translates into lack of improvement on the main indicators of integral development of this important population group. High rates of child morbidity, illiteracy, malnutrition, many children involved in activities such as labour, sexual and commercial exploitation, etc., reflect a State for whom children and youth are not a priority, who leaves aside the main principles of children’s rights: survival and development, participation, no discrimination; in a phrase, a child's best interest. […]
For institutions in favour of Human Rights, work has become much more difficult with the new government since the beginning of the year 2000, because many of the present State officers have been involved in violations to human and children's rights in the years of the internal armed conflict. […]
In this way, the Guatemalan education system has contemplated a series of programmes and projects aimed to extending coverage and improving quality and equity of education, as well as solving the problems in the rural areas and of the most discriminated and unassisted populations. However, there is not a complete response yet to the pluricultural and multi-ethnic characteristics of the country; there are great gaps and contradictions in this area. For example, according to an advisor from the Ministry of Education, in 1998 there was an increase of 5% on enrolment at the elementary level, but that same year, at the end of the school year, the desertion rate went up. […]
access and participation of indigenous people in socio-political, education decisionmaking is very limited, even though 61% of the Guatemalan population is Mayan. […]
In Guatemala, there is discrimination of children and youth due to gender, ethnias, and age. […]
This lack of interest toward children is shown in present and mot important development indicators for 1999, which have not had significant changes through time: Illiteracy (29.63%)8, Child Mortality (44 per every 1000 born alive), Chronic Malnutrition (46%) and the main causes of Morbidity and Mortality (gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases)9. This situation shows that, in Guatemala, not all children have the right to Life, Survival and Development. Freedom of speech is not a right for them either, which is made evident in the worst of cases, in the lack of opportunities, for example, to be heard in judicial and administrative proceedings (for more information, check Recommendation 16). Consequently, most of non-government organizations working with children and youth have begun the process of protagonism, which allows children and youth to learn and exercise their capacity and right to freedom of speech and organisation. […] The Committee recommends that a comprehensive public information campaign be developed and implemented urgently, in order to avoid and fight against abuse to children in their family and in society, as well as forbidding the use of corporal punishment in schools. Child abuse, in all its expressions, has been an issue and problem that continues to be evident in Guatemala. On this matter, the General Procurator’s Office reports that during 1998, there were 735 accusations, in 1999, 869 accusations and from January through September of 2000, 397. The National Commission against Child Abuse (Comisión Nacional contra el Maltrato Infantil) – CONACMI-, a multi-sector permanent co-ordinator states that from June 1999 through July 2000, there have been a total of 63 accusations, of which, statistical analysis shows the following figures: 52% were boys and 48%, girls, most of them at a very early age. The mothers, in almost half the cases, are the aggressors, and the place of aggression is their home (80% of the accusations). The most common type of abuse was physical (48%), followed by neglect (32%), sexual abuse (12%) and emotional abuse (8%). Main steps and progress made to prevent and eliminate violence against children in Guatemala are: 1) Design and implementation of national and regional campaigns (Central America and Mexico) against child and youth abuse, which allowed grouping several sectors on the issue and on the planned activities; that the issue was made public during the development of the campaign, and the elaboration of education, communication and accusation material. 2) Implementation of mechanisms for making accusations of child abuse and other violations to children’s rights in different institutions, public as well as private. 3) Setting networks of inter-institutional co-ordination where government and non-government organizations that work at the detection, assistance, treatment and prevention, have been trained and built to provide adequate and timely assistance to the problem, with the objective of developing dynamic connections that allow for treating child abuse and sexual abuse in an integral way. 4) The use of medical-psychological charts for recording case detection, in some child assistance instances. 5) Setting up a care hot line, where women, mothers and grandmothers answer calls for orientation on child abuse cases. Child and Youth Sexual Exploitation with commercial purposes The latest research efforts show an increasing amount, especially of girls and young women who have been introduced by adults into the different modalities of commercial sexual exploitation in Guatemala: prostitution, child pornography, sexual tourism and child trafficking for prostitution purposes. Investigations like the one performed by PRONICE, an NGO in favour of Central American children, called “Prostitution and Child Pornography: A Public Secret” and the one performed by the Child Defence Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman Office, "Sexual Objects or Social Subjects? A Close Encounter to child-youth prostitution in Guatemala” reveal important data that prove the people and authorities in the communities covered by the investigations know all the forms and dynamics of sexual commercial exploitation of girls, their ages, causes and implications; clarify the legal and institutional panorama that rules the phenomenon of prostitution of children and youth in Guatemala, correspondingly. Event though Guatemala has broad legal framework that was made with the purpose of protecting children and youth from these crimes, it still has big gaps and contradictions. The report presented by Dr. Ofelia Calcetas Santos, after her visit to Guatemala in 1999 is very important since her main recommendation on the issue is the following: "Even though Guatemala participated in the Stockholm Congress and assumed the commitment to work on the eradication of sexual commercial exploitation of children, no public institution has received a mandate for taking over follow-up on this issue. Therefore, the Special Realtor earnestly recommends that a coordination centre be set up to perform this task". […] The Committee recommends that the State Party introduce necessary measures to effectively monitor and supervise the child adoption system, based on Article 21 of the Convention. […] Even though there are limitations on getting information about the amount of adoptions in Guatemala, it can be said that it is a high and increasing amount. (…) On the "Study on Adoptions and Children's Rights in Guatemala", recently performed and published by UNICEF, there is a list of countries to which adopted children were sent in 1998 and 1999. Event thought it is a long list, it is obvious that in those years, the United States is the most important country (62.34% and 60% correspondingly). It also notes the importance of international adoptions compared to national adoptions. The records of Family Courts and the National Procurator's Office show that during 1997 and 1998, almost all the adoptions (99% and 98% correspondingly) were international adoptions. Based on the data collected in 1999 and on 90 children, it was determined that most of the adoptions (90%) are of children not older than 18 months. Fifty-eight percent of the cases were of children born in the capital city, and 42% from the departments, especially Quetzaltenango, Jalapa, Jutiapa, San Marcos, Izabal, Escuintla and Retalhuleu. When the legal framework allows extra judicial procedures by a Notary, it also shows that in 82% of the cases (same sample for 1999), childcare during the adoption process is provided by people in their homes, without any control by the authorities. UNICEF's study also shows that there are about 175 to 200 lawyers who work on adoption procedures, most of them as specialised or exclusive practice. These professionals submit their files in the 5 family courts most convenient for the, with the sole purpose of requesting, under oath, that a social worker perform the corresponding socio-economical study, which explains, according to the investigation, that these lawyers handle up to 50 adoptions in different courts every year. The lawyers who participated in the investigation have been working in these procedures for 5 through 20 years, and it could be estimated, based on the information provided by international organisations, embassies, adopting parents, INTERPOL and different Homes, that the cost per adoption is of about US$6,000 to US$30,000, which shows there could be illegal financial benefits involved. Doctor Calcetas Santos 10 has a clear concept of this complex situation of adoptions, which she expresses as follows: “The lack of clear, legislative or political, orientations, together with the existence of personal economic interests, adds up to a cumulus of complex issues that make even an objective debate very difficult. The Special Relater is convinced that in Guatemala there is a large, complex network of traffic of babies and small children for adoption in other countries. (...) Deficiencies in a system that gives way for an ill-fated practice with which children are reduced to mere commercial objects, sold to the highest bidder." […] better efforts are to be made on training qualified teachers. These steps will contribute to prevent any form of discrimination by language, in regard to the right to education. […] Even though laws establish that elementary education is mandatory and free, not all Guatemalan children attend school. In the year 1999, from a total of 1,828,413 children, 7 through 12 years old (age for elementary school), only 1,616,380 enrolled in school, which means that 11.6% is out of the education system. Access to high school is even more restricted, since coverage was only of 29.8% and for pre-college level, 12.6%. […] in Guatemala, approximately 1 million 850 thousand persons do not know how to read and write. […] Building and strengthening the National Network for Support to Disabled Persons, promoted by the Asociación de Capacitación y Asistencia Técnica en Educación y Discapacidad –ASCATED- (Association for Training and Technical Assistance on Education and Disabilities), which has been able to establish Department Links in the interior of the country, design a system of Reference and Counter reference of cases, support Boards of Directors of Parents and Friends of Disabled Persons, and constant collection and feedback of the Database. This allows identification of institutions that, somehow, are related to disabled children and youth. A total of 163 participate, including national hospitals, early stimulation programmes, and assistance programmes for disabled persons. […] In Guatemala, to this date, there aren’t any institutions or monitoring systems that can provide periodical tests and corresponding follow-up to the procedures or treatments of physical and mental health of children in different institutions, to evaluate their progress, limitations and stagnation. Concrete and integral actions are urgent, not isolated activities. These should include public policies in favour of these children, national action plans, decentralisation of services, co-ordination of efforts between organizations and training of staff and specialized human resources. […] The problems of children traumatised by the effects of the armed conflict and violence in society, are, to the opinion of the Committee, a matter of great concern. In this sense, the Committee recommends that the Party State consider the implementation of specific projects for children that are implemented in an environment that promotes health, self-respect and dignity of the child. Situation and steps: Guatemalan children and youth were not a target group saved from the armed conflict, but, based on the documents on the issue, it has motivated reflection on the intentionality of violations to children’s rights as a specific strategy: the destruction of the seed, as reported in the Guatemala, Nunca Más (Guatemala, Never Again) Report, elaborated by the Proyecto Interdiocesano para la Recuperación de la Memoria Histórica –REMHI- (Inter-dioceses Project for Recovery of the Historical Memory) published by the Human Rights Office of the Archbishop’s Office -ODHAG- and also the report Memoria del Silencio (Memory of Silence) of the Comisión para el Esclarecimiento Histórico -(CEH)- (Commission for Historical Elucidation). According to CEH; the 6 most frequent violations to children’s rights were: 43% by arbitrary executions, 14% by torture, 14% for deprivation of freedom, 19% by disappearances, and 3% by rape. […]
Since the Guatemalan Constitution recognizes the prevalence of duly ratified international conventions in the field of human rights, the Committee urges the Party State to apply the principles and dispositions of the Convention in the area of juvenile justice, instead of the dispositions of national legislation that contradict the Convention, and especially those related to the "irregular conduct system". The Committee also recommends that the juvenile justice system be revised to ensure its compatibility with the principles and provisions of the Convention, including those stated in articles 37, 39 and 40, as well as other pertinent international instruments in this field. In this sense, it is recommended that the Party State consider requesting technical assistance from international organisations, including the United Nations Centre for Human Rights. […]
children who do not have a criminal background are placed together with minors who have committed crimes, putting the children's mental and physical integrity in danger". […]
A study23 on adolescents deprived of their freedom cites the main characteristics that affect detained and secluded youth in the juvenile judicial system centres, and that in some way contradict articles 37, 29 and 40 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child: a. They promote irresponsibility and impunity: There still exists the tendency to detain and seclude young persons considered dangerous, without family support or financial resources, discriminating them from those who do. b. They violate the principle of legality: There is no typification of crimes. The young person is detained and secluded for "irregular conduct", based on the authorities criteria and without taking into account if he/she committed a crime or a felony. c. Deprivation of freedom is a general rule and is a decision made for an indefinite period: There are no limits or deadlines for imposing sanctions to young persons in conflict with the law. Arrest is the most common measure, since the authorities have ample power to decide on corrective measures. d. Minors are objects of the process and not subjects of rights: The opinion of young persons is not considered worthy, and there is no recognition to rights, minimum guarantees and the due process in the cases of transgression or violation of penal law. e. Minors are considered incapable: Diagnosed through a model of tutoring that exempts them of their own responsibility, young persons are "placed" under the supervision and protection of adults. Because of the absence of a Children and Youth Code, the Social Welfare Secretariat of the Presidency, which is in charge of children deprived of freedom due to conflicts with the law, bases its activities in the Minors Code and the Convention on the Rights of the Child, facing limitations, which were more acute after the recent annual budget cut of more than 10% (from 44 to 39 million quetzals) since the year 2000. […]
As a means to address interrelated issues of education and child labour, the Committee recommends the adoption of all necessary measures to guarantee children's access to education to avoid their getting involved in exploitation activities. The Committee also recommends launching public awareness campaigns that are effective at preventing and eliminating child labour, based on article 32 of the Convention. In this sense, the Committee recommends that the Party State request international assistance from the ILO. It is hard to determine the magnitude of this problem, since there are different appreciations on the participation of children in labour. In the 1994 Population Census, according to UNICEF's projections, the total of working children that belonged to the economically active population was of 756,711, implying that 20% of those of the ages between 7 and 17 years old, participated in economical activities, and constitute 17% of the Total Economically Active Population - EAP. […] According to a study by PREALC/ILO three fourth of working children, e.g., 1 million five hundred thousand are located in the segments of the Guatemalan economy that are way behind the other sectors, such as the traditional rural sector, the informal sector and domestic labour. According to information from the International Programme for Eradication of Children Labour / International Labour Organisation, -IPEC/ILO-, in the country, there are about 765 thousand children who are being exploited in their jobs and the main cause, as stated in the study, is poverty. The main cause of child labour continues to be associated to the conditions that have been created and perpetuated historically by government, generating, as a consequence, high levels of poverty24. The consequences are in the categories of abuse and economic exploitation; lack of labour, legal and union protection; absence of possibilities to initiate or continue with their education; physical and mental health problems; restricted access to social security, system that only assists persons older than 14 years old with a permit from the Ministry of Labour and who appear, as well as adults, in payrolls. Other implications are the recreation spaces, job conditions, lack of security, discrimination, physical, emotional, and sexual abuse, clandestinity or invisibility of their participation in the labour market. […] Guatemala lacks a human rights culture, issue that is perceived, even by the population in general, as a system that defends criminals, basing these opinions on the defence many human rights organisations have made in the cases of lynching in many communities in the interior of the country. The country faces enormous deterioration in general, which is expressed in the impunity and lack of justice in different cases, such as the Gerardi case, the beginning of a social cleaning process25, the increase on political intimidation, especially to persons and organisations working on the issue of human rights. These persons and organisations have been objects of threats, theft of information and personal aggressions, as well as aggressions to their offices and equipment, and lynching in the interior of the country. The situation in 1999 was more algid than previous years. According to the Human Rights Ombudsman's Office - PDH-, the number of denounces increased in relation to denounces made in 1998 (11,892), year on which there seemed to be a tendency to decrease (in 1996 there were 19,763 and in 1997, 19,935). According to the 1999 Annual Circumstantiated Report published by the Human Rights Ombudsman, in that year, his office received a total of 16,754 denounces "that reflect the multiple problems the Guatemalan population is facing, due to the incoherence between the crude reality, product of the government's lack of political will, and the modernising illusions that prevail in discourse." Of the denounces received, only 1,016 files were processed. In 1999, the violations to individual rights were the highest in the country (47%) and of these cases; the one that represents the highest percentage is violation to the right to security. Most of the typified cases were authority abuse, especially from members of the National Civil Police; violent deaths; car thefts; robberies in bank agencies; and kidnapping. These are the main crimes that reflect the country's insecurity. The violation to social economical rights represented 19%, reporting that most of the cases are related to the right to employment and those related to coverage of public services (the denounces for the sale of the phone and electricity companies were especially significant). On the issue of specific rights (14%), most of the denounces were on political, children and women's issues. On the issue of violation to social rights (20%), the most vulnerable are the rights to education, health, family and environment protection. These show the lack of assistance and high risk in which the Guatemalan population is living. From these last statistics (especially specific and social rights), it can be stated that the most vulnerable populations are children and youth. It can also be stated that, in Guatemala, Children's Rights are not a priority for the State or for any government, situation that is evident on matters related to budget allocations, public policies, national and global plans, juridical and institutional gaps to assist this population. Directory: docs docs -> Application for acem docs -> Observational Assessment of Teaching Practices Teaching Assessment Initiative Proposal Submitted to The Teachers for a New Era project docs -> Traditional British values docs -> From Warfighters to Crimefighters: The Origins of Domestic Police Militarization docs -> Borzoi Club of America Register of Merit Program I. What is a Register Of Merit docs -> Protecting the rights of the child in the context of migration docs -> United Nations E/C. 12/Esp/5 docs -> 9th May 1950 the schuman declaration docs -> Getting To Outcomes® in Services for Homeless Veterans 10 Steps for Achieving Accountability Download 4.33 Mb. Share with your friends:
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