Child Convention Protection
Is the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) sufficiently sensitive to the particular problems faced by girl-children?
“International law cannot be raised as a panacea” to the problems faced by children and girl-children, particularly when states enforcement is weak. However, in order to receive “positive actions” from states, international law should be developed significantly in defining and describing the rights in a more universal, clear and concise manner.
There are many international conventions offered protection to girl-children and the most important convention of them all is the 1989 Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The CRC provided children with “many promising aspects” on what rights children should have.
As the primary treaty created for children, CRC is not blind to the problems faced by girl-children. It contains many provisions relating to girl-children, however like many other articles in that Convention, it is “problematically vague and imprecise”. The weakness and confused definition of the Convention will be discussed thoroughly as we go along.
It is interesting to examine rights for children, particularly human rights for girl-children. This special subject is brought to the surface and widely discuss due to the fact that there are undeniable gross human rights violations specifically faced by girls than boys. Cultural reasons, religion, customs, traditions, conflict and for the most part poverty influenced the unfair treatment, discrimination, and abuse to their existence. Unfortunately regardless to those serious aspects on discrimination against girls, there are also ‘ordinary daily life conduct' of “neglect, ridicule, discouragement, physical and sexual abuse where somehow too often taken for granted as ‘just the way things are'”.
Considering the limit of this essay and the large scope of problems faced by girl-children, it will not be possible to address all the issues concern in details and comprehensive manner. Thus, the matter will be limited to the protections available for girl-children living in armed conflict with specific focus on girl-child soldiers and how sufficient is the existing international law best protect their rights.
In many parts of the world, girl-children received unfair treatment from their societies, sadly enough the discrimination started when they are still inside their mothers wound. In the process called ‘pre-natal selection' girl-child risked for being taken away her right to life, the right which guaranteed in the CRC (Article 6). This protection also assured in the Declarations on the Rights of the Child as restated in the CRC preamble where appropriate legal protection should be provided for children before as well as after birth. Ironically, in some part of the world, a girl would wish they were never been born.
It is often said that women shaped the next generation of mankind. Healthy and educated women will create healthy and educated children. “The girl child of today is the woman of tomorrow. The skills, ideas and energy of the girl child are vital for the full attainment of the goals of equality, development and peace. For the girl child to develop her full potential she needs to be nurtured in an enabling environment”.Unfortunately for the girl child, who born and lived in armed conflict or poor societies, growing to ‘her full potential' is too much of luxury and being alive is an expensive struggle. Girl child who lives in an armed conflict despondently faced more risk of abuse and human rights violations compare to girl child who lived in a non-conflict environment. It is not wise to say that CRC is not sensitive to the issues faced by girl child, as a matter of fact it does provide safeguards for girl-children from wide-ranging human rights violation.
As elaborate by Cynthia Cohen, compare to other masculine human rights conventions such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), CRC demonstrates gender-balanced in determining the rights. ‘His' and ‘her' used frequently in its provisions, and the word ‘every child' used extensively. The principle of non-discrimination genuinely engaged and portrayed in this Convention. Nevertheless, the Convention is not perfect. It should be noted that the Convention comes into force in 1989, while the problems of girl child-soldiers have gradually developed over the years. CRC provides a number of safeguards for girl-child. It can be found on articles 2 on state's obligation to protect children from discrimination, article 32 on protection from economic exploitation, and article 34 on protection from all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse.
The specific protections applicable to girl child-soldiers can be found on article 35 on state's obligation to prevent the sale, trafficking and abduction of children, article 37 on torture and deprivation of liberty, article 38 on protection for children in armed conflicts according to international humanitarian law, and article 39 on psychological recovery and social integration for child victims in armed conflict. Hypothetically, these legal protections should be able to provide the safe guards needed.
Girl children in armed conflict are much more vulnerable and face more risk to a certain abuse and exploitation. Most of these girls are not running around in the front line of the battle field carrying guns. The majority of them were sold, abducted, and recruited to the armed forces and rebel groups to become servants. They work long hours and most of the times without paid. When they become much older as in 14 or 15 years old, they will be promoted as ‘wives'. In their new ‘post' they would have better food and less domestic work. Sadly, the conditions would be much more abusive for the wives. The wives have to face severe physical and sexual abuses on a daily basis.
The following legal frameworks provide a number of protections for girl child in force labour: ILO Minimum Age Convention, 1973 (No.138) article 1, 2 and 3 provide the provisions on minimum age for child labour. The most sufficient convention concerning child labour in armed conflict would be ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Convention No.182 (1999). It contains specific protections for children in armed conflict (article 3) and it also demonstrated its sensitivity regarding the special situation for girl-children as stated in article 7(e). In conjunction to the ILO Convention 1999 is the ILO Worst Forms of Child Labour Recommendation No.190. The recommendation provides more special attention to the particular risk faced by girl-children in armed conflict.
Unfortunately the same amount of specific protection to girl child is not provided enough by CRC or its optional protocols. Article 38 of the CRC (2) “States Parties shall take all feasible measures to ensure that persons who have not attained the age of 15 years do not take a direct part in hostilities”, the word ‘direct part' result to an assumption that the provision applicability only to those in the frontline and holding guns. Most of the girl-child soldiers do not serve in the battle field, they do domestic labour and remain in the ‘sideways'. The provision lack of clarity, consequently give the impression that those who are involved indirectly is not protected. In 2000, as a response to the need to “increase the protection of children from involvement in armed conflict” the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict was adopted. The optional protocol fall far behind from expectations, it only focus on the increasing of the minimum age from 15 years to 18 years. No indirect situations mention in the protocol. Since it has no provisions regarding the indirect involvement of children in hostilities, it fails to address the issues faced by girl-child soldiers. Regrettably, both CRC and the 2000 optional protocol failed to provide the safeguard needed for girl-children particularly concerning sexual abuse and exploitation. Article 34 of the CRC is more focus to the sexual exploitation and abuse in commercial industry and not sensitive enough to the situations faced by girl-children in armed conflict. The same applied to the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Concerning the girl-children who are force to become the wives of the commanders, CRC does not have any safeguard for under age marriage or force marriage. There are no minimum age of marriage stated in the CRC or in ICCPR. The only provision on child marriage is provided by the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), “…the marriage of a child shall have no legal effect, and all necessary action, including legislation, shall be taken to specify a minimum age for marriage and to make the registration of marriages in an official registry compulsory”. It should also be noted that there are no definition on what or who is child soldier in the CRC.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child remains as the primary convention for children. It does provide progressive protection for both boys and girls. However, as the main legal protection for children, it is expected to protect children from any forms of violation. Girl-children in armed conflict are particularly vulnerable to certain abuse and exploitation. Lack of safeguard in the Convention and its optional protocols will risk drowning them more deeply into danger. Although some of the issues were covered by other international legal instruments, nevertheless an extra specific hard law such as an Optional Protocol to the CRC hopefully with a great amount of clarity is needed to give the girl-children the protection that they deserved.
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