The FCO’s human rights work in 2012

Written evidence from BOND (HR 5)

I. SUMMARY

i. The Bond Child Rights Group welcomes the publication of ‘The Human Rights and Democracy: the 2012 Foreign and Commonwealth Office Report’ (the 2012 Report), particularly the specific commitment to consider children’s rights as an integral part of the FCO’s wider international human rights agenda [1]   .

ii. However, we are concerned that the 2012 Report does not cover children’s rights comprehensively, but rather reports sporadically on a small number of individual child rights issues, such as education. Including the full spectrum of children’s rights is necessary if the Report is to be considered an accurate and comprehensive tool measuring human rights. One example of failing to take a comprehensive approach is the absence within the Report of assessments made of violence, exploitation and abuse against children which we know from NGO reports is ongoing across the countries of concern identified within the 2012 Report.

iii. In its submission to the FAC’s Inquiry into the 2011 FCO Report, the Bond Child Rights Group noted several indicators showing the de-prioritisation of children’s rights. These were:

· 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 FCO’s Child Rights Panel; and

· the FCO’s position that its ‘centrally-driven human rights priorities do not include child rights.’ [2]

Despite the FAC’s recommendation that the FCO should ‘undertake urgent work to address negative perceptions among voluntary sector groups of its commitment to children’s human rights abroad’ [3] , the Bond Child Rights Group considers the 2012 Report to lack any tangible progress on the above indicators and, disappointingly, to be a confirmation of the FCO’s failure to prioritise children’s rights. Given that children constitute the majority of the population in many of the countries of concern and are often the most vulnerable to human rights abuses, there is a strong case for a greater prioritisation of child rights.

iv. On the point of the lack of child rights specific expertise and focus within the Advisory Panel, something which could help to ensure that children’s rights are given adequate and specific consideration in the FCO’s broader human rights work, the FCO committed to consider extending the membership of the Panel to include a child rights expert as part of a review of the Panel. Disappointingly, there has been no progress on this issue and we are unaware of any further details about the status of the review of this group.

II. INTRODUCTION

i. The Bond Child Rights Group is a network of 30 UK NGOs [4] , research organisations and other stakeholders concerned with the realisation of children’s rights worldwide. Our goal is to see children and their rights accorded greater priority in the UK Government’s international development and foreign affairs policies and practices, in line with HMG’s obligations in this area as a signatory to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). We are committed to a rights-based approach where children are viewed as rights-holders with distinct needs and interests who require special protection and support. We are guided by international standards and norms, including the CRC, and we are committed to highlighting ways in which HMG can better meet its international obligations in this area.

ii. Our vision is for a world 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.

iii. In accordance with the UN CRC, the UK is required to develop policies and undertake all actions (including for international development and foreign affairs) in light of the best interests of the child [5]  and to ‘undertake all appropriate legislative, administrative, and other measures for the implementation of the rights recognized in the present C onvention.’ [6] 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 2012 Report.

III. THE CONTENT AND FORMAT OF ‘HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEMOCRACY: THE 2012 FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE REPORT’

i. We welcome the UK Government’s commitment to supporting the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on violence against children and on the prevention and elimination of all forms of violence against children. We urge the UK Government to commit predictable funding arrangements to the UN offices of Violence Against Children and Children Affected by Armed Conflict, that are commensurate to the scale of the issues children face globally. We welcome the £150,000 allocation committed at the G8 Foreign Ministers Meeting in April to the UN SRSG on Children Affected by Armed Conflict, but we call for greater budget allocation on a 5 year funding cycle that would provide reliable support to enhance the effectiveness of these UN offices, including towards their fight to reduce sexual violence in conflict, in line with the PSVI.

ii. We were also pleased to see the UK Government mark the first International Day of the Girl Child in October 2012. This day also saw the UN call for the end of child marriage, a child rights violation to which the UK Government are rightly committed to ending and which is mentioned in a number of sections in the FCO’s 2012 Report. However, we also note with concern the decision to remove Chad from the list of countries of concern in the Report, and highlight both the exceptionally high prevalence of child marriage in Chad [7] , as well as the existence of child soldiers. We urge the FCO to recognise the interconnectedness between child rights violations such as early marriage, and the protection of children more widely, and to broaden their focus from a limited number of specific issues towards the full provisions which relate to the protection of children in the UNCRC. [8]

iii. We welcome and support the FCO’s focus on women’s righ ts, as highlighted in the 2012 Report. However, we urge the FCO to recognise the interdependence between women’s rights and children’s rights, and specifically the rights of girl and boy children . We also urge the FCO to consider including the empowerment of girls within their overarching priority of tackling gender equality and women’s empowerment .

iv. We acknowledge the FCO’s commitment to include information on children’s rights issues in the countries of concern section of the Report. However, we note that children’s rights are not systematically considered in all the countries of concern. We note the absence of any analysis of children’s rights in the sections on Belarus, China, Cuba, Fiji, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Russia, Somalia, South Sudan, Turkmenistan and Zimbabwe. Iraq is of particular and critical concern due to the acute insecurity that has seen hundreds of children killed and targeted in 2012. We acknowledge that the FCO has briefly included activities related to the support of child victims of armed conflict in the 2012 Report in relation to Afghanistan, Burma, Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Sudan, Syria and Yemen. However, we consider that the commitment to report on FCO activities has been made at the expense of reporting on the situation of children’s rights in countries where there are no FCO activities relating to children, but where children’s rights abuses are still of grave concern. For example, we note the absence of any inclusion on the issue of children affected by armed conflict in Pakistan, Iraq, Central African Republic, Somalia and South Sudan, which are all either countries affected by conflict or post-conflict where the rights of children are significantly impacted, and are included in the Report’s Countries of Concern. We ask the FCO to take a consistent approach to reporting on the situation of children’s rights in all countries of concern within the Report; the presence of child rights violations should be a key criteria for countries listed under this section. The analysis of children’s rights within this section should also guide the UK Government’s engagement in each of these countries, thereby identifying and taking steps to address gaps in child rights implementation. We urge the FCO to include consistent analysis of the situation of children’s rights in countries of concern in the Report, irrespective of the relevant activities the FCO are undertaking in response.

v. We urge the UK Government to sign and ratify the Third Optional Protocol (OP3) to the UNCRC, not least in order for it to enter into full force. We consider the OP3 to be a critical tool to reinforce the importance of domestic responses to child rights abuses and therefore within the interests of HMG to support and champion. We urge the UK Government to take a leading role amongst the international community in prioritising the promotion of children’s rights through communication and inquiry, and the accountability of governments to protect the rights of children within their borders. We also understand that the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is satisfied that it has the resources to implement OP3 and that any delay in ratifying it on account of resources for its implementation is misplaced. We therefore urge the UK to take the opportunity at the UN General Assembly in September to ratify the OP3.

vi. The Bond Child Rights Group believes that the 2012 Report’s commendable focus on children affected by armed conflict, child marriage and harmful traditional practices such as FGM/C, warrants the appointment of a specific child rights expert to the FCO’s Human Rights Advisory Panel. It further warrants a cross-Whitehall strategy which aligns the approach of HMG to improving child rights in all its international development and foreign affairs work.

IV. THE 11 APRIL DECLARATION BY G8 FOREIGN MINISTERS ON THE PREVENTION OF SEXUAL VIOLENCE IN CONFLICT, AND THE IMPACT OF THE FCO’S PREVENTING SEXUAL VIOLENCE INITIATIVE

i. The Bond Child Rights Group welcomes the Prevention of Sexual Violence Initiative (the PSVI) and recognises the leadership role taken by the FCO in championing the cause of tackling sexual violence in conflict amongst G8 leaders. We particularly welcome the acknowledgement that children, including boys and girls of all ages, are victims of sexual violence in conflict. The Foreign Secretary made the point that prosecution of criminals is central to the PSVI. [9] We support the decision for this to be done by a pool of UK experts building the capacity of local actors such as the police, investigators and medical practitioners in gathering evidence to secure convictions. However, little is being done to ensure the safety of child victims and witnesses to enable them to testify against perpetrators without fear of reprisals. The PSVI should include safe houses for victims, admission of pre-recorded testimony, access to child rights advocates (trusted adults) or even paralegals to support them before, after and during trials.

ii. The 11th April Declaration [10] by G8 Foreign Ministers rightly emphasises the need to ensure that prevention and protection efforts are included in the first phase of all responses in conflict and humanitarian settings, including some mention of the protection and promotion of children’s rights. However, the Declaration does not indicate how this will be achieved. The FCO must ensure that steps are put in place in order that such interventions are supported from the outset of a conflict and through early warning systems prior to conflict breaking out. We urge the FCO to commit to sending sexual violence experts as part of their own emergency first response teams, who are trained in child protection and have specific expertise working with child survivors. We also call for the FCO to impose conditionality of funding to peacekeeping forces and Missions on the hiring of sexual violence and child protection experts and training of peacekeepers in child protection. Furthermore, the UK should use the momentum of the G8 to push for UN Security Council members to ensure resolutions on peacekeeping missions include clear, strong child protection mandates.

iii. The Bond Child Rights Group supports the acknowledgement by the Declaration of the need for a comprehensive approach to health, psychological, legal and economic support for survivors of sexual violence. However, in order for the declaration to be implemented successfully in practise there must be a holistic approach through the ‘spectrum’ of conflict. We urge the FCO to call on G8 partners to fund a multilateral pilot in order to identify the ideal range of activities across the continuum of protection and to establish coordination mechanisms for implementing these activities. This should build on local civil society and government/community structures (to include interventions across ‘stages’- prevention, protection, prosecution and response/rehabilitation).

iv. To reduce sexual violence against children, the FCO and its partners must address the lack of safeguarding procedures within its operations. The FCO lacks a policy for safeguarding children [11] that explicitly details appropriate and inappropriate forms of behaviour and reporting procedures in the event of concerns that may arise. UK Government departments which deliver services to children within the UK are required to adhere to a safeguarding policy to ensure the protection of children. FCO are delivering services to children around the world both directly and through their partners. The Bond Child Rights Group considers the international environment to be no different and calls for comparable standards to be met. We consider the failure of the FCO to own a safeguarding policy to be an oversight of their responsibility to safeguard children.

V. SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS

i. The FCO should award greater priority to child rights within its human rights work with priority based on need and vulnerability alone, with recognition that children constitute the majority of the population in many of the countries of concern and are often the most vulnerable to human rights abuses. Furthermore, failing to address the rights of children contributes to negative cycles of violence and conflict. Greater priority could be demonstrated by:

· The urgent adoption of a child rights strategy. Such a strategy would complement the commitment by the FCO to individual children’s rights issues such as children affected by armed conflict and child marriage;

· Engagement with child rights groups to ensure the situation of children’s rights is represented to the FCO and the FCO has support on responding to these issues;

· The inclusion of a child rights expert on the FCO’s Advisory Group on Human Rights.

ii. The FCO should include the empowerment of girls within their overarching priority of tackling gender equality and women’s empowerment.

iii. Future reports should consistently include and consider the situation of children’s rights for all countries of concern regardless of the level of activities of the FCO on children’s rights in that particular country. This analysis should inform the FCO’s strategy and approach in each country, for both its own activities and its engagement with national governments.

iv. The UK Government should sign and ratify the Third Optional Protocol (OP3) to the UNCRC, taking the opportunity to ratify the OP3 at the UN General Assembly in September, in order for the UK to then be considered a global leader in promoting accountability in upholding children’s rights and advocate for national governments to do so as well.

v. The PSVI should support the protection of children against sexual violence and ensure age and child-sensitive provision across all phases (from prevention through to reintegration). This should be realised through the funding and inclusion of child protection within peacekeeping and humanitarian response. The FCO should ensure the implementation of the G8 declaration in relation to all commitments relating to children through the UN, G8 and multilateral partners, building on local structures and not limited to prosecutions. Efforts must also be made to ensure the safety of child victims and witnesses to enable them to testify against the perpetrators of sexual violence within conflict without fear of reprisals, and with the appropriate and necessary protective measures and support systems in place.

vi. The FCO must establish a policy to safeguard children that clearly spells out appropriate and inappropriate forms of behaviour and reporting procedures in the event of concerns that may arise.

24 May 2013