UN Geneva - Multimedia Newsroom : CRC Press Conference: findings on Argentina, Armenia, Israel, Mexico and Turkmenistan

I think we can start right.

Good afternoon, everybody, and welcome to this press conference by the Committee on the Right of the Child.

The committee will present findings on six countries, that is Argentina, Armenia, Bahrain, Israel, Mexico and Turkmenistan.

With us today are Miss Anne Skelton, who is the committee chair, Mr Good Branson, Mr Pedernera and Miss AUB Idrisi.

Without any further ado, I'll give the floor to Miss Skelton.

Thank you very much, Safa.

The Committee on the Rights of the Child has had a very busy session during the last three weeks.

As you hear, we have been reviewing 6 States parties, and this is part of our international monitoring role, which requires us to check with States Parties how they're doing in terms of implementing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child to which they have signed up.

So today, we're going to share with you some of the highlights that came out of these discussions that we had and also to give you some idea of the recommendations that we've made.

I'll begin with Armenia.

What stood out here was the fact that although the government is making progress in certain areas, for example, they are working on sexually abused children, how to provide better services and they've established a programme called Safe Corner that is operating in some parts of the country but does need to go to scale.

But what we were concerned about was the issue of children with disabilities.

We found that there were hundreds of children with disabilities who are in state institutions in Armenia, and we urge the government to increase support to families and to community based care so that they can begin the process or or increase the speed with which they can place these children back into communities.

They really need to invest in early childhood education and in school infrastructure as well, and they need to increase the number of qualified teachers.

Turning now to Turkmenistan, here again we were worried about the large number of children with disabilities in institutions.

So here we stressed to Turkmenistan that deinstitutionalisation should be top of their agenda.

And we also pointed out to them another concern that we had and that was that it was difficult to know how many children were affected because their data collection is very weak.

And as we pointed out, you know, they may have some good policies on the table, but really how can you plan for services if you don't know how many children there are and what services they are needing?

Turning now to Israel, which presented its 5th and 6th combined report to the Committee, we spent six hours in dialogue with the sizeable delegation that came from Israel to Geneva.

Of course, they placed the seven October attack **** on the agenda and the committee listened to very moving testimony by a mother, Sabine, who lost her eldest son Or and whose youngest son, Shy, suffered serious injuries.

The government told us about the work they had done to support these children and their families.

Many thousands were displaced within Israel after the attack, and the the government explained that they have been providing support and trying to help these children and their families to move back to where they were living before.

We also heard about two very young children, Ariel and Kefir, who were taken as hostages and who have not yet been returned.

The committee expressed its concerns about the serious mental health situation for children in Israel.

Because obviously children who are living in this aura of conflict are suffering.

And another concern that we raised with the government was militarization of schools in Israel.

You know, when the when Israel last came to the committee, which was in 2013, the committee urged them to roll out peace education to ensure that every child received peace education.

Instead, the government has recently passed a law that makes it a declared aim of education to educate children for significant service in the Israeli Defence Forces and national civil service.

This is in the mainstream ordinary schooling system.

We pointed out to them that the Convention on the Rights of the Child says that education should be aimed at the preparation of every child for a responsible life in a free society, in a spirit of understanding, peace, tolerance, equality and friendship.

And we pointed out to them that there's a huge disconnect here if that's what they signed up to when they ratified this convention.

And yet the aims of education are being shifted towards militarisation.

Well, Israel has many positive laws and policies that uphold children's rights in Israel for Israeli children.

The committee was at pains to point out that it's our task to be worried about all children everywhere.

And of course, the situation in Gaza and the West Bank is a massive, unprecedented, overwhelming child rights crisis.

The committee has previously called out Israel for its rights violations in the occupied Palestinian territories as long as a decade ago, but clearly again, during this dialogue, it loomed larger than ever.

My colleague Bragi Good Branson, who led the team within our committee working on Israel, will speak in more detail about the discussions we had with the occupied territory within concerning the occupied territories, West Bank and Gaza.

But I'll hand back to you now.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you so much, Miss Skelton.

I'll hand over to Mr Good Branson.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you may know that there is a fundamental difference in the position of the Committee on the Right of the Child with one hand and the State Party, Israel, with regard to the application of the Convention on the Right of the Child to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, including Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Israel maintains that the application of the Convention is limited to its territorial limits.

That's not the position of this committee.

We believe that the application of the Convention is valid due to the exercise of jurisdiction and effective control of Israel outside this states sovereign territory.

And this very much marked the debate the the dialogue with Israel, the opinion of the Committee.

The position of the Committee is in line, as you may know, with the mainstream views of the UN bodies, including the General Assembly, the reports of the General Secretary, the various human rights treaty body and very importantly to International Court of of Justice.

But this obviously presented problems as Israel did not submit as detailed information with regard to the implementation of the conventional right of the child as we would have liked.

On the other hand, Israel did recognise that the State party does apply the rules derived from the principles of international humanitarian laws, the principles of distinction, precaution and proportionality in carrying out their military attacked.

This obligation is in fact highlighted in Article 38, one of the Convention of the Rights of the Child.

And a large part of our dialogue with Israel was precisely on this.

How Israel could in the light of the the the massive death and and maiming of children in Gaza, for example, how could they justify this in in the context of the international humanitarian rights laws?

I'm sorry.

Now with regard to our concluding observation, we have a very a detail, detailed recommendations with regard to Gaza, with regard to the West Bank and the generally the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

And we have also, as Miss Anne Skelton mentioned, a very detailed recommendations with regard to Israel.

She mentioned education and mental health.

To this I could add the issue of discrimination.

[Other language spoken]

In our concluding observation, we recall the findings of the Indian National Court of Justice from the 19th of July last on the issue of racial segregation and apartheid.

It is quite clear that in Israel there is a system of discriminatory legislation that arrives from the Basic Law of Israel.

And in our concluding observations, we raise concerned over many issues relating to how this discrimination unfolds.

For example, with regard to restrictions or movements on, with regard, for example, access to health services, on issues on home enforceable rates or or or dimension during nights, which are extremely traumatising for children.

And on family reunification, which is also a big issue where families cannot live together because they come from a different part of the region.

Now these were the kind of issues that we emphasised in our concluding recommendation.

I think I will give the floor now back to our chair.

Thank you very much, Mr Good Branson.

I'll give the floor to Miss AUB Idrisi.

Thank you very much, Sarah.

Thank you very much in advance.

I apologise if I make any mistakes because the English is my third language for Argentina.

The positive element it was the adoption in 2021 of the law that regulates and extend the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy and access to post abortion care to all but main concern.

Main concern are related to coordination.

Coordination because there there are elimination of the ministry and coordination provided now by secretariat with the risk of reduction of resource autonomy and capacities.

Another concern about standard of living many children living in poverty and increase in extreme monetary poverty and food insecurity.

In June news children lack of protection policy, a **** level of poverty and **** level of mortality due to malnutrition and Jesus and lack of access to water for Bahrain.

We we had we we had the report under 2 for optional protocol opaque and OPSC and the positive element and there is no compulsory requirement and all recruitment is voluntary and all majors are taken to ensure age.

For OPSC, the positive element was adoption of the law, law on restorative justice and protection from *****.

But main concern for OPAC, it was allegation and investigation carried out on serious violation against children in Yemen attribute to the Coalition for the Support for Support of Legitimacy in Yemen and Article 11 of the International Crimes act #44 of 2018, which allow for invocation of superior order in the event of the Commission of offences.

And under OPSC, the main concern was the lack.

This legislation doesn't cover all offences under OPSC, namely sale, sale, crime of sale.

It's similar to traffic, but it's not as traffic and the absent of information on major taken to protect children at risk, namely those in vulnerable situations such as girls who are victims of domestic violence, migrants, stateless person and migrants Mexico.

The main positive point it's almost universal vaccination, almost universal vaccination and reform of law on migration and refuges.

But main concern is about dismantling, dismantling the of the comprehensive policy of protection of children and adolescent and the right to life, survive and development.

Because there is a **** level of homicides, a **** level of disappearance of children and feminists, and despite the reform of law on migration, the deprivation of liberty, it's systematic.

And of course, after these dialogue with each country, the committee made several recommendation to address the situation.

Thank you for your attention.

Thank you very much.

Are there any further comments?

Otherwise, we'll move to questions.

We'll start with any questions in the room.

[Other language spoken]

I have some questions on Mexico during this year.

You're talking about victims of enforced disappearances and victims of many homicides.

Do you have numbers maybe for this year or if you have any numbers on that?

If you observed or if you talk with the delegation about enforced recruitment of boys in cartels and organised crime?

If you if you observe that and I would like to know if you are concerned of the ID PS internal displaced children with families or or maybe alone if you can talk about this.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much for your question.

The the number of children this this appearance children we don't really number, but concordant information, a test if you understand French, I will move to French.

[Other language spoken]

Super French or in Spanish?

[Other language spoken]

And ID?

[Other language spoken]

Internal displaced children with their families and because of the violence that we are living in in the country regarding the cartels violence.

If you if you have any comments on that or if you if you have any concern on that.

[Other language spoken]

If I if I may add something on a violence, homicide and feminine side in Mexico, the committee, the committee recommend uses uses the state party to declare the fate against child homicide and feminine side as a national cause and urgently develop majors to prevent and eradicate these phenomena.

In particular, by further identify and addressing the root causes and dedicating adequate financial and resource and human to it, and also divide the highest level of priority and take immediate and effective measure to prevent, investigate and sanction the disappearance of children.

As said by my colleague, it's impunity It's really it's a committee was alarming by this impunity.

And the Third Point to add others root causes of disappearance of children design, implement procedure and follow up on cases of Mason children by the police and the office of the public prosecutor.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Maybe just a follow up from Mr Pedernera.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much in the room, Emma Farge, and then Gabriella will get back to you.

[Other language spoken]

A question for the chair or the Vice chair, please, on Israel, I'm wondering, does the committee have any way of enforcing its findings or is it up to the political will of the member state?

And if not, any other thoughts on how what you described of as a massive overwhelming child's rights crisis can be addressed?

And and just if you could give me a bit more context, you mentioned severe violations in in your findings.

How often does that happen?

Do states generally comply or or do they generally not comply?

[Other language spoken]

You know, the committee here has added its voice to that of many UN bodies.

So the Committee on the Fitz Rights of the Child has now also added its deep concern about the situation.

But that's after the General Assembly, the Security Council, even the International Court of Justice.

And so there's a kind of adding of the weight of it.

I think it is encouraging that Israel came to the committee whilst the conflict is ongoing and and that we were able to continue to have this dialogue for a six hour period.

That was significant.

And generally speaking, you know, over time states have shown a good compliance with this convention and a willingness to to try.

Now, of course, the the committee, like many others have been saying the only real way to serve children's rights in this situation is a ceasefire.

And, you know, we're not naive enough to think that because we've added our call to that call by many, that it will now happen as a result of that.

But I do think that there is a kind of declaratory weight that simply gets heavier and heavier and that the the voice of the Committee on the Rights of the Child is significant.

After all, more children have died in this war than men or women.

That is massive.

And I think when when we think about it and we know that under international humanitarian law that Israel admits it is bound by, killing of civilian targets on this scale is unacceptable in international humanitarian law and international human rights law as well.

And children are always civilians.

If I may add to this reply that has been given now, 20 years back, the UN defined 6 grave violations against children during armed conflict and these were selected.

These criteria were selected on the basis of the severity, of course, but also on how to measure those.

And I, I don't think we have seen before a violation that is so massive as we are seeing in Gaza now.

There are three of the six which there is no doubt about that Israel is violating.

This is killing and maiming of children, and secondly, attack on hospitals and schools.

And three, the denial of humanitarian access.

These are extremely grave violations that we do not often see.

Of course, the outrageous death of children is is almost historically unique.

This is a extremely dark place in history.

Thank you very much, Gabriella with the follow up.

Yes, thank you very much.

You, you already talk about children and the war and lots of children that have died from Palestine, but I arrive a little bit late.

I don't know if you already talk about this, but how is this war affecting children in Israel, in their families in everyday life?

[Other language spoken]

I did talk about it at the beginning and I, I stressed the fact that, you know, we were, it was a lot of what we talked about in the dialogue.

We the the state party was very keen that we should understand that children in Israel are suffering as a result of the conflict.

And we certainly heard that when we heard from a mother whose whose child had died and another of her children were injured.

And we, and we accept that testimony because it was very genuine that clearly children are suffering.

So war is not good for children, whichever side of the divide they are on.

And Israel did explain to us that they have taken many measures to try to support those families, but not all of them have been able to return home yet.

And aside from the the attack, of course, the hostage taking has also been very distressing for children whose families were affected.

And there remain two children who are hostages and haven't yet been returned.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Dina Bisab, a reporter of several Arabic media.

The Israeli delegation said in the discussions with you last week that Israel does not target civilians or children in general and that it is respecting the international law.

What is your response to this?

And second question, we know that there is a very long list of rights of children what is still respected in Gaza by Israel.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you for this question.

I shall try to respond to it now the we did try to get answers on the measures Israel had taken to protect protect children in densely populated areas during military operations in accordance with international humanitarian law.

The application of weapons with wide area effects in residential buildings, houses where multi generational family lives raises certainly concerns about the protection of civilians and of all children.

All children are of course civilians.

We did not get any sufficient answers to this and I think the figures speak for themselves.

I don't think we can identify any particular measure that has been taken to save children's lives in this military operation in Gaza.

And follow up, has the Israeli delegation shows any intention to accept or maybe to follow your recommendations?

I would say we were encouraged by the fact that they they came and that we managed to have a conversation.

And at the same time we realised that at times we were talking past one another.

So although traditionally this type of interaction is called a constructive dialogue, a dialogue does require listening and engaging and there were certainly moments where it was clear that the answers were had been prepared before.

In fact, on the very point of to what extent the, the, the measures in Gaza were disproportionate, for example, you know, there was someone from an official, from their legal department who's very knowledgeable about international humanitarian law requirements.

So they had their answers, but they were were not in our view facing up to the reality that 17,000 children are dead and that there have been repeated attacks on schools and on hospitals.

Of course they made the usual points that there are tunnels beneath these buildings, etcetera.

So we heard all of that and but I think what we kept on driving home is just the fact that this is a scale that is completely out of proportion.

And so it's hard to understand how the principle of proportionality is being followed under these circumstances.

And I I think a further issue was that in the end, when hopefully this war is over, all of the rebuilding that has got to happen, all of the recovery that is going to happen have to happen.

And, you know, because of the fact that that is all ahead of us, it wasn't possible for us to get into the detail of what that would require.

But at that sometime in the future, that has to be faced by Israel and by the world.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

Musa Al Si Al Meri TV Arabic news channel based in Lebanon.

[Other language spoken]

The number of children.

Killed or wounded or arrested in Gaza and.

[Other language spoken]

October 7th.

[Other language spoken]

Well, this is a difficult question.

The latest confirmed figure that we were working with was between 16 and 17,000 children.

The Palestinian authorities have submitted the list with the names of between 13 and 14,000, I believe.

But we know that there are many children that are buried under the and the rubble in Gaza.

Nobody knows, of course, how many.

So the figure can be a lot higher and, and it will take a long time to to find this out.

We have, we were informed of of an estimate of that it would take about 15 years just to clean up the rebels in Gaza.

And this means that we are not likely to find bodies, all the bodies until after some years to be able to establish exactly how many deaths there are.

So this is the the reality.

[Other language spoken]

Yeah, about the the.

[Other language spoken]

Piping in detention in West Bank and Gaza.

And if you have.

Also an idea about the number of children killed in Israeli side or arrested.

[Other language spoken]

Can can I know the age of these?

Two children.

[Other language spoken]

Well, those two children, Ariel and Kefir, who were kidnapped, if those are the two children you're referring to, they were babies when they were arrested.

Sorry, kidnapped.

And so they're they've, they've been in captivity for almost a year now.

So actually one of the points that was made is that they've spent more time in captivity than they had lived before, at least the youngest one had.

And with regard to the number of children who've been killed and who were detained, we do have those figures.

I don't have them right in front of me now, but I can certainly provide them to you afterwards.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Any further questions in the room?

Otherwise we will take questions online.

[Other language spoken]

Thank you very much.

I am Isabel Sacco with the Spanish News Agency.

I would, I would like to ask you please to go back back a little bit on what you said or you explained before.

And my question on this census.

If during the six hours of discussions with the Israeli delegation at any moment, at any point of this discussion, there were there was any recognitions of the obligation by the state of Israel on the of protection of children in the, in the occupied territory, Palestinian territories at any moment.

They're they recognise that they are responsible for that on their well-being and protection.

[Other language spoken]

To respond to this question, I I can only say that Israel did admit to its obligation under international humanitarian law and but they did not, as I said earlier, in my view and our view, provide us with sufficient.

Information that led us to believe that they had taken any measures to avoid deaths to preserve life in Gaza.

In a more general way, they did express that it is regrettable that so many children have died.

Thank you very much in the room, Dima.

[Other language spoken]

A follow up about the children, Palestinian children in detention.

Do you have we received many reports talking about them?

They are facing due to those reports, violence, sexual violence, famine and this is systematic according to those reports.

Do you have more details about this please?

Yes, we actually did receive information from lawyers that are representing children and for a long period of time whilst in detention, children don't have access to lawyers.

But what we were told that is that when lawyers are reaching them, the children are in a very poor state.

They are these adolescents, of course, are terrified and they're suffering from scabies, which is a disease that you get from living in unhygienic conditions, which has causes the skin to itch.

And they, you know, are also not able to see their families during this period of time.

We did take this all up with the delegation.

And we also expressed a concern about new, new laws that have come in that are allowing for longer periods of time.

This wasn't denied by by the Israeli government.

And we also pointed out that, you know, the that children who are being tried in the military courts, we also object to that because the committee's position is that children should not be tried in military courts.

And so again, whilst there are positive things to say about the General Administration of Child Justice for Israeli Children, this doesn't apply to Palestinian children who are in the occupied so who are in Israel.

Thank you very much.

[Other language spoken]

Tatvik, I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly.

Yes, it is correct.

[Other language spoken]

I'm from Arava daily and the question is for Chair and Vice chair.

A year has already passed since about 120,000 Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh were forcibly displaced and however, Azerbaijan has not yet been punished for ethnic leasing and violation of the rights of hundreds of thousands of peoples, people in which they are also children.

I'd like to know what tools do have to hold Azerbaijan accountable, because nowadays the violation of child rights is being continuous because the Azerbaijanians are posting videos in different social media and children watch the videos and see in this videos their houses, their place.

And so children got traumatic situation.

And the second question is about the legislation of Armenia, because I saw that in the review of the committee there is something written about Armenian legislation that Armenian legislation still didn't ban corporal punishment in all settings.

I'd like to know, have you raised this issue before the Armenian authorities and are there any specific deadlines for revising the legislation in this regard?

[Other language spoken]

Yes, thank you for that.

So the Committee when it reviews Azerbaijan will put these questions to Azerbaijan.

Obviously, we were aware of the impacts of what you've been discussing on Armenian children, and that was raised and it was part of the discussion with regard to children, the corporal punishment of children.

It was one of the issues that the committee focused on and we have urged the government to take immediate measures to end the use of corporal punishment in all settings and to also provide complaints mechanisms so that children can can complain, particularly in schools and in alternative care settings.

And we also believe that the government must invest in campaigns to change the the attitude about the use of physical punishment on children in Armenia.

Thank you very much, Mr Skelton.

[Other language spoken]

Do you know if the ICRC has access to Palestinian children who are in detention in in Israel?

Are you aware of that?

[Other language spoken]

I'm afraid we can't answer that question.

And when we repeat receive reports from the ICRC, they're usually confidential.

[Other language spoken]

Are there any further questions in the room?

[Other language spoken]

The New York Times.

[Other language spoken]

I just wonder if you could come back on Israel.

Whether you got any?

Substantive engagement with the Israeli delegation on the allegations of the torture of children.

In detention was there.

Any substantive discussion on that?

Was there any acknowledgement by them of a need to investigate and process that we Yeah, thank you.

It was certainly amongst the questions that we raised there was no acknowledgement, but I, I think that their response generally is that the, the detention facilities are, are under some kind of reporting process or some kind of monitoring process.

The we, we're pushing them though in our concluding observations to make that far more objective and independent so that there needs to be an independent monitoring process of for all children in detention.

Thank you very much.

Are there any further questions in the room?

[Other language spoken]

We do not have any further questions online.

[Other language spoken]

OK, so with that, I think we can conclude the press conference.

Thank you very much to the committee members for being with us today.

Thank you so much for coming.

Those of you in the room and online have a good rest of the afternoon.

CRC Press Conference: findings on Argentina, Armenia, Israel, Mexico and Turkmenistan - 19 September 2024