Foreign Affairs CommitteeWritten evidence from BOND Child Rights Group

1. Executive Summary

1.1 The Bond Child Rights Group welcomes the “Human Rights and Democracy: The 2011 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report” (the Report), particularly several positive aspects that relate to children and children’s rights. This includes sections on addressing the issues of women and girls, child abduction, children and armed conflict.

1.2 However, we are concerned that the 2011 Report does not cover the full spectrum of children’s rights issues and does not adequately incorporate children’s rights in general into the analysis of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office’s (FCO) human rights work or the human rights situation in the countries covered by the report.

1.3 A key example of this is the Report’s spotlight on the Arab Spring. Despite the dramatic impact that conflict can have on child development and future opportunities, and the instrumental role children can play in developing and maintaining security and stability, children’s rights receive too little attention in this section of the report.

1.4 The Report seemingly reflects the FCO’s de-prioritisation of children’s rights. This worrying trend has already/also previously been evidenced by:

the lack of a child rights-focused member of the FCO’s Human Rights Advisory Panel;

the expiration of the FCO’s child rights strategy and the decision not to renew or replace it;

the lapse of the Child Rights Panel; and

the FCO’s position that its “centrally-driven human rights priorities do not include child rights.”1

2. Summary of Recommendations

2.1 The FCO should accord greater priority to child rights within its work to promote human rights overseas.

2.2 When assessing the human rights challenges in specific countries, the FCO must consistently analyse children’s rights to inform their strategies and priorities within different countries, and their work with national governments.

2.3 The FCO should work with civil society and children and young people to produce a new Child Rights Strategy, objectives for promoting child rights and to identify how child rights will be incorporated broadly and effectively into its work.

2.4 The FCO should re-constitute a Child Rights Panel, giving it a strategic role in developing, implementing, monitoring and evaluating a new child rights strategy.

2.5 The FCO should ensure that child protection policies and procedures are required components of grant programmes.

2.6 The FCO should invite a child rights organisation or representative with particular child rights expertise to join its Human Rights Advisory Group.

2.7 The FCO should ensure that all staff receive training on child rights and child protection policies and procedures.

2.8 Future Reports should address more directly and more fully HMG’s obligations under international child rights standards, including the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and its Optional Protocols, and address a broader spectrum of child rights issues.

2.9 Future Reports should also include a child rights analysis section for every country listed in the “Countries of Concern” chapter.

3. Introduction

3.1 The Bond Child Rights Group is a network of over 20 NGOs, research organisations and other key actors concerned with children’s rights worldwide.2 Our goal is to see children and their rights accorded greater priority in the UK government’s international development and foreign policies and practice, in line with HMG’s obligations in this area. We commit to a rights-based approach that sees children as rights-holders. We recognize that children have distinct needs and interests and require special protection and support, and are committed to lobbying for adequate resource allocation in order to meet their needs. We are guided by international standards and norms, including the UNCRC and are committed to highlighting ways in which HMG can better meet its international obligations.

3.2 Our vision is for a world free of poverty, disease and injustice, in which children are empowered as equal partners in promoting development, democracy, peace and social justice. We believe that children have the right to participate in decisions that affect them, their families, communities and nations. Furthermore, we believe that children are a catalyst for transforming societies and an essential asset for all efforts to address urgent global development and foreign affairs issues and challenges.

3.3 In accordance with the UNCRC, the UK is required to develop and undertake all actions and policies (including international development and foreign affairs) in light of the best interests of the child3 and to “undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention.”4 Crucially, this includes the work of the FCO. Therefore, in line with our interest in encouraging HMG to meet its obligations under the UNCRC, the Group welcomes the opportunity to submit evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee’s inquiry into this 2011 Report.

3.4 This submission focuses on the Report in relation to the FCO’s obligations, as part of the UK Government, under the UNCRC. It considers whether and how, in light of the Report and other evidence, the FCO is meeting its obligations and recommends ways in which the FCO could better prioritise children’s rights.

4. The Content and Format of “Human Rights and Democracy: The 2011 Foreign & Commonwealth Office Report”

4.1 Children are entitled to all the human rights to which adults are entitled but, due to their vulnerability and specific needs, children are granted additional protections under international law. Having ratified the UNCRC, HMG is obliged to develop and undertake all actions and policies (including international development and foreign policies) in light of the best interests of the child5 and to “undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present Convention”.6

4.2 Children constitute around half the population in many developing countries and around a third of the global population. Children and young people are the overwhelming majority of people affected by poverty, but they have the least capacity to support or protect themselves. Children’s rights are increasingly being threatened by cross-cutting issues such as climate change, the food and financial crises, humanitarian crises and conflicts, high levels of youth unemployment, rapid urbanisation, and increased fiscal austerity.

4.3 The Group welcomes the inclusion of a number of specific sections relating to children’s rights within the 2011 Report. These are: “Children’s rights” (under Equality and Non-discrimination); “Child abduction” (under Human Rights for British Nationals Overseas); “Children and armed conflict” (under Reducing Conflict and Building Stability Overseas) and “Safeguarding children” (under promoting human rights in the overseas territories). In particular, we welcome the new inclusion of a specific topic covering “Safeguarding children” which was not included in the 2010 report. Furthermore, the 2011 Report includes subsections relating to children’s rights in the majority of its detailed reports on “Countries of Concern”.

4.4 The Bond Child Rights Group welcomes the focus on specific child rights issues in the report (children and armed conflict, child abduction, safeguarding children). However, these issues should be considered alongside the UK’s broader international child rights obligations, including to support the general measures of implementation of children’s rights in partner countries.7

4.5 We are pleased to note that, in the subsection on Equality and Non-discrimination, the 2011 Report mentions the FCO’s work “through international institutions, including in Europe and the UN, to promote and protect the rights of children.”8 This is a welcome inclusion as, within this section, the Report explicitly mentions several of the UK’s obligations under international law, including its reporting obligations under the UNCRC’s Optional Protocols, and the International Labour Organisation Convention 182, relating to the worst forms of child labour. However, the Report does not explicitly affirm the FCO’s continuing obligations under the UNCRC. We recommend that future reports include such an affirmation, to demonstrate more fully the FCO’s commitment to children’s rights within its work.

4.6 We welcome the section on children and armed conflict and the attention given to the issue in a number of the country profiles. In particular, we welcome the identification of countries where children are recruited and/or deployed as soldiers. In order to better inform the FCO’s wider work in relation to security sector reform and military assistance, we would recommend that a consolidated list of these countries be included in the section on children and armed conflict for ease of reference.

4.7 We particularly welcome the addition of a section on safeguarding children, the “SCOT” programme. This reflects an important dimension of the FCO’s work in overseas territories—ensuring the use of child protection policies and procedures in overseas territories. However, this also reflects an inconsistency as similar interventions are not pursued elsewhere. The Report notes that the SCOT programme ended in March 2012 but highlights several “gaps” that need to be filled to secure the safety and welfare of children and their rights. The FCO should provide information regarding its intended future actions to this end in overseas territories and elsewhere. We recommend that the FCO seek support of external child rights agencies in these actions.

4.8 Overall, despite the inclusion of the additional section relating to safeguarding children, the overall discussion of child rights in the 2011 Report is limited, comprising only four sub-sections. This shows that children’s rights are not a serious consideration or concern for the FCO, and certainly not a priority. Children’s rights should be accorded greater priority within the FCO’s work, and that this should be reflected by child rights being addressed much more broadly in future reports.

4.9 “Children’s rights” is not included as a separate section under Section I: The Arab Spring. This is a glaring omission considering the impact of the Arab Spring upon children, eg the raised risk of detention and reduced participation,9 and given that the Section includes other thematic sections, including on women’s rights and the rights of people with disabilities. Where the Report contains sections that are topical and a focal point of activity, it is imperative that the FCO demonstrate how it has taken children’s rights into account. Child rights should be routinely included in such sections in future reports.

4.10 Although, as mentioned, the Report contains information regarding children’s rights for most of the priority countries of concern listed at the end of the Report (16 of 28), in future, there should be a section on children’s rights for each country report. Of the two “Countries of Concern” the Foreign Secretary mentions in his foreword, Syria contains a separate section on children’s rights, while Libya does not. Given the circumstances in these two countries, children’s rights should have been included in both case studies.

4.11 The Report includes several sections relating to women’s rights, which contain information about girls. The focus on girls is emphasised in the Minister of State’s foreword, which mentions “a cross-government approach to tackling violence against women and girls overseas and increasing women’s political participation.” Although this commitment to gender equality and ending violence against women and girls is extremely positive and welcome, the FCO should strengthen sections on women’s rights in future reports by emphasising links between women’s and children’s rights in general. Women’s rights and protection from violence are connected to the development, survival and welfare of girls and boys. Future reports should explicitly make this link.

5. General Comments and Recommendations on the FCO’s Child Rights Work

5.1 The report sends mixed messages about the place of child rights in the FCO’s work. Although the previous Government “identified the rights of the child as a key human rights theme to prioritise,”10 the current administration has de-prioritised child rights. In 2011, the FCO stated that its “centrally-driven human rights priorities do not include child rights”.11 This statement, made in response to the FAC’s inquiry into the FCO’s human rights work in 2010–11, is worrying, both in terms of HMG’s obligations under the UNCRC, but also because of the potential benefits of according greater priority to children and their rights in overseas development and foreign affairs. The statement is also at odds with FCO claims that the “implementation of the Convention (CRC) forms the main focus of our bilateral child rights work.”12 The Report’s case studies that discuss the FCO’s work relating to children, indicate that the FCO views child rights activities as part of its remit and as important for illustrating its human rights work more broadly. In light of this, we urge the FCO to provide clarity on their role and mandate in supporting children’s rights through foreign policy.

5.2 Under the previous Government, the FCO acknowledged its duty to children by establishing a Child Rights Panel. This Panel helped to design the FCO’s 2007 Child Rights Strategy, which ended in 2010 and which has not been extended, reviewed or replaced. At present there is no active Child Rights Panel or strategy.13 We recommend the FCO reconstitutes a Child Rights Panel drawn from child rights agencies and specialists.

5.3 The FCO’s Human Rights Advisory Panel does not include a member with a child rights focus. To ensure that children’s rights are mainstreamed within the FCO’s human rights activities, and to support the UK Government in meeting its international child rights obligations, the FCO should invite a child rights organisation or representative with child rights expertise to join its Human Rights Advisory Group.

5.4 The Human Rights and Democracy Programme (HRDP), which was launched in 2011 and which is mentioned repeatedly in the 2011 Report, does not include a focus on children’s rights. This is a backwards step from the Global Opportunities Fund (HRDP’s precursor) which included the promotion of child rights as a core objective and child rights as a focus for project funding. This is another indication of the FCO’s de-prioritisation of child rights and lack of action to meet HMG’s child rights obligations overseas, and should be rectified. Child protection policies should be a requirement and a child rights-based impact assessment should be encouraged for all projects funded by HMG overseas. The FCO should insert a strand into the Human Rights and Democracy Programme that specifically supports programmes that contribute to creating and supporting enabling environments for children’s rights in priority countries.

5.5 At present, the Equalities Team within the FCO has the central responsibility for child rights and this is reflected within the structure of the 2011 Report, which places “children’s rights” under the Equalities section. However, we are concerned that there is no longer a Children and Armed Conflict focal point, and that there is no FCO Desk Officer with primary responsibility for children’s rights who engages regularly and meaningfully with NGOs. These gaps must be addressed and the FCO should increase its dialogue with civil society.

5.5 It is currently unclear whether the FCO has a child protection strategy in place for all of its work overseas. The FCO’s 2010 Human Rights Report stated: “Many of the projects we finance on security sector reform or disarmament, demobilisation and reintegration contain child protection elements, as it is important that the specific needs of children are recognised and understood.”14 However, there is no similar statement in the 2011 Report. The FCO should explicitly state the importance of child protection within its work, ensure that all its activities are conducted in line with child protection policies and procedures, and ensure all staff are trained in implementing these policies and procedures.

6. The Likely Impact of New and Updated Government Strategy and Guidance Documents Published During 2011

6.1 The three strategic and guidance documents mentioned in the call for evidence all have direct bearing upon the realisation of children’s rights. In particular, the Overseas Security and Justice Assistance Human Rights Guidance sets out as one of its potential “risks” “violations of the rights of the child including ensuring that soldiers under the age of 18 take no direct part in hostilities” and requires that “vetting” activities take into account whether or not the proposed in-country operative has been involved in the use of child soldiers. This could help to raise awareness of the problem of child soldiers, as well as prevent the use of child soldiers.

6.2 HMG’s Strategy for the Prevention of Torture 2011–15 mentions the importance of peace and security for women, but fails to mention the importance of protecting children. Children must be considered within the context of the prevention of torture, especially with regard to concerns about forced confessions and fair trial as they are the most vulnerable to such techniques and practices. The guidance should contribute to the prevention of the torture of children, however, the Strategy only mentions children once as a vulnerable group that should be made aware of their rights via in-country posts.

6.3 The updated Strategy for Abolition of the Death Penalty targets two countries that retain the death penalty for children: China and Iran. Part of HMG’s approach to the death penalty is to ensure prohibition of death sentences for prohibited groups, including those under 18.15 This guidance could prove beneficial in helping to reduce the death penalty for children, although further work should be done to encourage alternative sentencing and more effective juvenile justice programmes.

7. Children’s Rights and the Cross-Government Strategy on Business and Human Rights

7.1 In developing a cross-Government strategy on business and human rights, the Government has an opportunity to demonstrate its commitment to protecting and promoting children’s rights through compliance with its international child rights obligations. In developing this strategy, we recommend that the Government pay particular attention to the Children’s Rights and Business Principles, published in 2012 by the Global Compact, UNICEF and Save the Children. These 10 principles set out in detail the appropriate actions businesses and Governments must take in order to secure that business respects and promotes the rights of children in all aspects of business operations.16 The cross-Government strategy should include clear mechanisms for supporting, monitoring and holding businesses to account for respecting child rights in all operations.

25 May 2012