Children

Children deprived of liberty remain an invisible and forgotten group in society notwithstanding the increasing evidence of these children being in fact victims of further human rights violations. Countless children are placed in inhuman conditions and in adult facilities – in clear violation of their human rights – where they are at high risk of violence, rape and sexual assault, including acts of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Children are being detained at a younger and younger age and held for longer periods of time. The personal cost to these children is immeasurable in terms of the destructive impact on their physical and mental development, and on their ability to lead healthy and constructive lives in society.

The associated financial costs to governments can also have a negative impact on national budgets and can become a financial drain when their human rights obligations are not upheld with regard children deprived of liberty.

To address this situation, in December 2014 the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted its Child Rights Resolution (A/RES/69/157), inviting the United Nations Secretary-General (SG) to commission an in-depth global study on children deprived of liberty (§ 52.d). On 25 October 2016, the Secretary General welcomed the appointment of Professor Manfred Nowak as Independent Expert to lead the Study. By Resolution 72/245, the UNGA invited the Independent Expert to submit a final report on the Study during its seventy-fourth session in September 2019.

Based on the over-all mandate established by the UNGA Resolution, the following core objectives of the Global Study have been identified:

Assess the magnitude of the phenomenon of children being deprived of liberty, including the number of children deprived of liberty (disaggregated by age, gender and nationality), as well as the reasons invoked, the root-causes, type and length of deprivation of liberty and places of detention;

Document promising practices and capture the view and experiences of children to inform the recommendations that the Global Study will present;

Promote a change in stigmatizing attitudes and behaviour towards children at risk of being, or who are, deprived of liberty;

Provide recommendations for law, policy and practice to safeguard the human rights of the children concerned, and significantly reduce the number of children deprived of liberty through effective non-custodial alternatives, guided by the World human rights protection commission framework.

Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children

Introduction

The UN Special Rapporteur on the sale and sexual exploitation of children is mandated to analyse the root causes of sale and sexual exploitation of children, identify new patterns of the phenomena, exchange good practices to combat it, promote measures to prevent it, and make recommendations for the rehabilitation of child victims of sale and sexual exploitation.

The mandate of the Special Rapporteur was created in 1990 and is the only mandate of the UN Special procedures system with an exclusive focus on children.

The Special Rapporteur has four main activities, namely undertaking country visits, sending individual complaints, writing thematic reports and conducting awareness-raising and advocacy to promote and protect human rights of children.

The United Nations Study on Violence against Children

In October 2006, the Independent Expert for the Secretary-General Study on Violence against Children, Paulo Sergio Pinero of Brazil, presented his final report to the UN General Assembly. The Study analyses violence against children in five settings: the home and family; schools and educational settings; care and justice institutions; the work-place; and the community. The Study contains 12 over-arching recommendations and a number of setting specific recommendations that represent a comprehensive framework for follow-up action.

Background

A child of a homeless family holds her doll, on the streets of Sao Paulo, Brazil, UN Photo The Study process also resulted in a more detailed World Report on Violence against Children and in child friendly publications. The Study material not available in this page can be found at: www.violencestudy.org

On 19 October 2007, the Independent Expert presented his progress report on the implementation of the Study recommendations to the General-Assembly. Click here to read his statement.

GA resolution A/RES/62/141 established the post of Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children. The resolution encourages the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) to cooperate

The study was guided by the Convention on the Rights of the Child which emphasizes children’s rights to physical and personal integrity, and outlines States parties obligations to protect them from “all forms of physical or mental violence”, including sexual and other forms of exploitation, abduction, armed conflict, and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. It also obliges the State to enact preventive measures and ensure that all child victims of violence receive the support and assistance they require.

The UN General Assembly called for the study in 2001 acting on the recommendation of the Committee on the Rights of the Child . In overseeing the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Committee held two days of general discussion on the issue of violence against children within the family and in school (2001) and state violence against children (2000). The request for an international study on the question of violence against children was an outcome of these days of discussion.

The Study process was supported jointly by WHRPC, UNICEF and WHO.

Questionnaire to Governments

This questionnaire (A | E | F | R | S) is designed to obtain information from Governments for the United Nations Secretary-General’s in-depth Study on the question of violence against children requested by the General Assembly in its resolution 57/190.

Responses from Governments

Official Responses received from Members States and States, entities and organizations with permanent UN observer status: