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Results: 1 - 11 of 11
Alex Kamarotos
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Alex Kamarotos
2021-03-11 15:44
Good afternoon.
Let me first of all thank you warmly for the invitation to Defence for Children International. I'll start with a few words about the organization. I think we are the only non-Canadians here.
Defence for Children International is a leading child rights-focused and membership-based grassroots movement and is currently composed of 35 national sections across five continents. It was created in 1979, the International Year of the Child, in Geneva, Switzerland.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, reported the following at the current session of the UN Human Rights Council here in Geneva:
Much of the negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has been exacerbated by a failure to address previously existing structural causes of inequality, social exclusion and deprivation, and the inability of many countries, rich and poor alike, to meet the basic needs of a sizeable proportion of their populations.
This is equally applicable to children and the rights of the child, in particular during this pandemic. DCI has had the chance to count on some very relevant experience from such other health emergencies as the 2015 Ebola emergency in west Africa, where DCI-Sierra Leone and DCI-Liberia were particularly involved. In February 2020, the international secretariat and the entire movement mobilized in front of this pandemic. We very quickly gave alerts regarding the risk of violations exacerbated by the pandemic or even created by mitigation measures taken by states.
In my intervention, in complementarity with your earlier hearings, I want to touch upon two issues related to children. The first one concerns the impact of the pandemic on violence against children, including gender-based violence. The second is the impact on access to justice, in particular for children deprived of liberty. That touches upon the issue we just heard.
UNICEF reports that violence prevention and response services have been disrupted in 104 countries during the COVID pandemic. I believe we still only see the top of the iceberg regarding the impact of the COVID pandemic on violence against children, but it seems to be already well documented that COVID-19 and some of the mitigation measures taken by the governments have increased the exposure of children to different forms of violence, exacerbating such human rights violations as stigmatization, discrimination and xenophobia; child labour and unpaid work; child pregnancy; and harmful acts that include child marriage and female genital mutilation, as well as online abuse, bullying and exploitation. As the UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence Against Children emphasized in her report to the UN Human Rights Council earlier this week, “What began as a health crisis risks evolving into a broader child-rights crisis.”
I also want to share our experience and results in the area of justice for children, in particular children deprived of liberty. DCI has been part of the origin—we are currently the co-chair together with Human Rights Watch—of a wide civil society coalition on children deprived of liberty. The NGO Panel for the Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty is composed of 170 civil society organizations worldwide. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Michelle Bachelet Jeria, has urged authorities since the beginning of the pandemic to look at releasing detainees and in particular low-risk child offenders. UNICEF data indicate that at least 31 countries have released children from detention because of concerns about the spread of COVID-19. This is certainly insufficient, and even lower than the number of adult detainees released.
Honourable members, I cannot finish this very short and certainly incomplete presentation without speaking about the impact of COVID-19 measures on the mental health of children and the importance of ensuring the meaningful participation of children on mitigation measures that concern them. Last year DCI organized child- and youth-led online debates on the impacts of COVID-19. We had very, very concrete results.
We also participated, together with a great number of other civil society organizations, in #CovidUnder19, an initiative to meaningfully involve children in responses to the pandemic, with participation from more than 26,000 children from 137 countries.
I want to quote from two of the children who participated in the initiative. The first one comes from a Bolivian girl: “I think the government should understand that children are not dumb and easily manipulated. Children should feel that trust and not feel like they have to remain silent. This would increase their confidence and [motivate them] to report injustice.”
Last but not least, a 16-year-old Canadian girl said, “Even though there is a pandemic going on, there are people out there who experience abuse daily. The awareness, even in Canada, on how to access the resources is not explained in the best way. Finding that information should be basic knowledge for any human being.”
I thank you.
David Matas
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David Matas
2021-02-18 15:43
Thank you for inviting me and for inviting us to participate in this study.
Beyond Borders ECPAT Canada is the Canadian affiliate of ECPAT, headquartered in Bangkok, Thailand. ECPAT is the worldwide network of organizations working to end the sexual exploitation of children. ECPAT is an acronym for the phrase “end child prostitution, pornography and trafficking”.
Within the general topic of the study, we wish to address the vulnerabilities of children to sexual exploitation created and exacerbated by the COVID pandemic. In general, the vulnerabilities of children to sexual exploitation have been both created and exacerbated by the pandemic.
Protective parents have died from COVID, rendering children vulnerable. Funds directed to protecting vulnerable children from sexual exploitation have been diverted to combatting COVID. Programs combatting child sexual exploitation have been impacted by the overall shutdown in reaction to COVID. School closures to protect against COVID have meant that child sexual abuse at home is not reported at schools. Children in sexually abusive home situations have, because of the COVID-related shutdowns, been trapped in these situations.
For those with access to the Internet, the increased time children spend on the Internet stuck at home because of COVID increases their vulnerability to sexual grooming and cyber-bullying by child predators. Children in detention suffer from decreased monitoring by the International Committee for the Red Cross, decreased as a COVID-prevention measure, leaving them open to increased abuse, including sexual abuse, from detention staff.
COVID prevention measures have impacted adversely on the delivery of humanitarian aid generally, including aid for the protection of children from sexual abuse. The shutdown of economies to protect against COVID has led to increased poverty, prompting some parents to sell their children into underage marriages or the sex trade.
ECPAT in April 2020 posted a publication titled “Why children are at risk of sexual exploitation during COVID-19” and wrote:
When entertainment venues that traffickers frequently use to seek customers and exploit child victims are shut down, there is a likelihood that child trafficking patterns will adapt... Child marriages are...likely to increase as teenagers from rural areas are highly affected by the worsening economic situation, being forced to migrate to urban areas and to live on the streets.
The variety of problems that COVID presents that create and exacerbate the vulnerability of children to sexual abuse require a variety of solutions. Because of limited time, I only want to address one component, the increase in child marriages.
Global Affairs already had a strong policy updated on its website on August 20, 2020 against child, early and forced marriages.
The trouble with that policy is that, in a Canadian context, it rings hollow in light of the widespread availability and practice of child marriages in Canada itself. The Constitution of Canada gives Parliament exclusive jurisdiction to regulate the legal capacity to enter into marriage. The provinces have exclusive competence over the formalities of marriage.
Parliament, in the exercise of its powers over the legal capacity to enter into marriage, allows for child marriages. The federal Civil Marriage Act allows for marriages of children aged 16 and 17, and the power has been widely used.
A study of child marriages in Canada published in January this year concluded:
Demographic patterns of child marriage in Canada are similar to those observed in many low- and middle-income countries. Girls were far more likely to be married as children than boys and typically wed much older spouses.
The study pointed to a discrepancy between Canada's domestic law and its foreign policy. The global COVID-related problems relating to child sexual abuse would be difficult for Canada to resolve on our own. Changing Canadian law to prevent child marriages is something entirely within the power of the Parliament of Canada. We should be doing this to prevent the sexual exploitation of children at home. By doing so, we would make our efforts to prevent the sexual exploitation of children through child marriage abroad more credible.
Thank you very much.
Shelly Whitman
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Shelly Whitman
2021-02-18 15:48
Thank you very much to the committee for this opportunity to speak with all of you today.
My name is Dr. Shelly Whitman. I am the executive director of the Dallaire Institute for Children, Peace and Security. I also wish to bring you greetings from our founder, Lieutenant-General (Retired) Roméo Dallaire.
It's a great opportunity for me to be here and it's lovely to see some of my former friends and colleagues like Pernille Ironside. The last time we met was in Nigeria.
I wish to begin by stating that the world needs to focus on building a global peace and security agenda that prioritizes the protection of children. Our collective failure to see the world through the eyes of children prevents us from effective and innovative approaches to address some of the world's most pressing issues of our time and will be felt for generations that have yet to come.
At the Dallaire Institute, we have been conducting work in places such as Juba, South Sudan; Kigali, Rwanda; DRC; Somalia; into Sierra Leone; Nigeria; and hopefully soon into other places such as Cameroon.
Today we are here to discuss the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on children who are exposed to armed conflict.
Despite calls by the UN Secretary-General, armed conflict has not stopped during the pandemic. Health care systems and educational services already under immense strain by conflict have been placed under even more stress due to COVID-19. Yet, worryingly, the world's attention has been diverted from many of the conflicts that have continued or emerged. As a result, we are also not bearing close witness to the results on the concerns of children.
The UN Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict has also expressed deep concern on the heightened risk of grave violations against children due to COVID-19. The UN special representative summarized the annual report to the Human Rights Council and stated that, “the response to the outbreak often had an unintended adverse impact on children's fulfilment of their rights to education and health, as well as their access to justice, social services, and humanitarian aid.” The report indicates that the pandemic has exacerbated children's vulnerability to grave violations in situations of armed conflict. “School closures made children even more vulnerable to other grave violations, in particular recruitment and use, and children in camps for internally displaced people and those deprived of their liberty have been particularly exposed to further protection risks.”
It is estimated that 99% of children globally reside in one of the 186 countries that have enacted some level of restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic. And for children living in conflict and fragile environments, the pressures of COVID-19 are even more complex.
I would like to remind this committee that UN Security Council Resolution 1612 highlights six grave violations against children in armed conflict. Those are the killing and maiming of children, the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, sexual violence against children, attacks against schools or hospitals, abduction of children and the denial of humanitarian access for children. These six grave violations have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
In particular, an example that I would like to highlight for you is that when it comes to measures to combat COVID-19 many children have been confined to dangerous home settings, increasing their risk of exposure to violence, abuse, neglect and exploitation, including sexual and gender-based violence, while limiting their access to protection services and social networks.
UNICEF estimates that 1.8 billion children live in 104 countries where violence prevention and response services have been disrupted due to COVID-19. And the UN Population Fund estimates that the pandemic will result in an additional 13 million child marriages between 2020 and 2030.
In addition, when it comes to the recruitment and use of children as soldiers, we know that we have seen instances in places such as Colombia where the armed groups are exploiting the global pandemic to recruit children into their ranks. Almost as many children are estimated to have joined armed groups in Colombia in the first half of 2020 as in the whole of 2019.
In addition, we have also seen increased insecurity because of the present pandemic, which has created conditions that have led to an increase in child trafficking in places such as Mali, and the cases of child recruitment have doubled there over the previous year.
School closures and disruptions have also created immense impact on the 1.6 billion students in 190 countries, and the risk of military occupation of closed schools remains a real concern. Prior to the pandemic, education around the world was already in crisis. It is estimated that over 10 million children will not return to school after the pandemic, as families continue to be impacted by growing poverty and unemployment rates. Schools continue to be attacked in places such as Central African Republic, Cameroon, Nigeria and Yemen. As recently as this week, we have seen horrific attacks on more schools in northeast Nigeria.
The denial of humanitarian access for children in active conflict zones and pre-existing challenges with nutrition have been exacerbated during the pandemic. Border closures in response to the pandemic have also adversely impacted the delivery of humanitarian aid to populations in need of additional support. For those living in IDP camps, access to sanitation is also further limited, and this is happening in a context of record child displacement occurring in 2019.
There is also increasing concern for children who are being detained due to suspicions of their involvement in terrorism or security offences, and the deplorable conditions that many of those children continue to be held in.
When we look at this issue, it is important for this committee and the Government of Canada to recognize that child protection is already a gravely underfunded field, constituting just 0.6% of official development aid. It is expected that the pandemic and the response will continue to reduce this funding.
I want to remind those here that in November 2017 the Canadian government, in partnership with the Dallaire Institute, co-created the Vancouver principles on peacekeeping and the prevention of the recruitment and use of child soldiers around the world. Today I would like to reiterate the need for Canada to continue to demonstrate leadership amongst the 100 endorsing nations that have endorsed since 2017, and also amongst the many that have yet to endorse.
It should not—
View Hedy Fry Profile
Lib. (BC)
Thank you.
I wanted to ask a question quickly—because I don't have a lot of time—of David Matas. It's about ECPAT. In 1997, I went to the first world conference on the sexual exploitation of children and youth, and it was there that ECPAT started to form its legs. ECPAT is an NGO, as most of you know, and it is doing extremely important work on children who are being trafficked.
We talk about conflict areas. We talk about Africa. We talk about South America. We talk about all those places. No one wants to talk about what's going on in Europe. Children are being trafficked there daily by organized crime, and we don't have data on it. We don't know what happens to them. We can't find them. About 13,000 children right now are missing in Europe, and nobody knows where they've disappeared to. There is an informal kind of refugee camp because these people come through Greece; they come through Italy, and then they get blocked at every border, with the exception of Germany and...Europe. Everyone thinks Europe is wondrous because Europe is a rich continent, but it isn't. There is a lot going on with regard to the safety of children in Europe.
I wanted to know how you feel ECPAT could do something about this. Is ECPAT involved in the European theatre? What is ECPAT doing to flag commercial sexual exploitation of children?
David Matas
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David Matas
2021-02-18 16:06
ECPAT is a network of affiliated organizations, and there are country representatives of ECPAT in 102 countries, including the European countries, absolutely. The headquarters have put out a general statement about the problems of COVID and sexual exploitation.
What you're talking about is a continuing problem. It existed pre-COVID, and it continues on with COVID. Of course, what you're dealing with are sexual predators who are targeting children. A lot of the venues where they traditionally have gone to target children, like bars and so on, have been shut down. As a result, they're using new and different ways, and they're adapting to the COVID situation.
Often what we find is that children, because of the increased poverty and the shutdowns that are generated with COVID, become vulnerable in different ways. As a result, the combat against child sexual exploitation in a COVID context has to shift. In reality, there has been a degeneration. Of course, you're absolutely right.
In terms of the European countries, it's not just people, refugees, coming from outside Europe and then being exploited in Europe. It's actual Europeans being exploited within Europe. Hungary has a very big problem, not only in terms of what's happening there but in terms of exporting to the rest of Europe.
View Stéphane Bergeron Profile
BQ (QC)
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank the witnesses for being here and for sharing their insightful comments with our committee.
UNICEF has reported that at the height of the pandemic, 90% of students around the world were affected by school closures. Even in countries like ours, we have seen how much of an impact these closures have had on student motivation and academic achievement. We can only assume that things are even worse in countries facing much more difficult conditions with technology that lags behind, and where some students might be tempted to enter the workforce, while others might be recruited for human trafficking and prostitution, or even join the ranks of child soldiers.
UNICEF further reported that according to a world survey released in August, children were being exposed to a growing risk of violence, exploitation and abuse as a result of the pandemic.
We also received a few answers with respect to the sexual exploitation of children.
February 12 is International Day Against the Use of Child Soldiers, also known as Red Hand Day. Its objective is to gain support from governments to put an end to the recruitment of children as soldiers. According to the director of World Vision, the number of child soldiers has increased by 75% over the past 10 years.
Can the pandemic be assumed to have heightened, increased and intensified the recruitment of children as soldiers and for human trafficking networks?
Pernille Ironside
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Pernille Ironside
2021-02-18 16:12
Thanks, Shelly. I'm happy to do so.
Mr. Bergeron, you're absolutely right that there is an intensification, but it's not only pandemic-related. It's also due to the nature of warfare, the increasing complexity of warfare that's been happening and the increasing disparities and inequities in the world that are driving the most vulnerable children to seek whatever avenues they may have at this time. I personally have met with many children who have actually felt that it's safer for them to join an armed group, where they can also have access to regular food and shelter and so forth, rather than be in the dire circumstances they have at home.
So to the extent that COVID is exacerbating those circumstances and drivers...noting that those are not voluntary. A child is under duress under such circumstances. It's very concerning for UNICEF that this is happening.
I'll hand it over to my colleague Shelly. I'm sure she will complement that further.
Shelly Whitman
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Shelly Whitman
2021-02-18 16:13
I think it's important to emphasize what Pernille is saying. The situation will be exacerbated by this pandemic. I think it's important to recognize our deep concern that the foot will be taken off the gas in terms of the positive efforts because money and attention will get diverted to other areas. I think that's important for us to not lose sight of.
The other thing I want to emphasize is there is a variety of reasons, as Pernille mentioned, why children join armed groups. They can be forcibly abducted, but that's only one very small part of it. For many, yes, there's safety, a sense of purpose, a sense of meaning and access to power. All of these dynamics are very important for us to think about in terms of our responses to the pandemic, making sure we are including this perspective of not losing sight of protecting children from exploitation, sexual exploitation, violence, abuse and so on.
David Matas
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David Matas
2021-02-18 16:14
If I may just add something about sexual exploitation in particular, which you also asked about, there's a double problem here. One is there's increased vulnerability with the increased poverty, which leads to increased willingness to sell children for money. Also, many parents are killed through COVID, so there's decreased protection.
On the other hand, there's a weakening of the protective systems generally because money's being diverted to other purposes because of COVID. We have this double-barrelled problem.
Guillaume Landry
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Guillaume Landry
2021-02-04 15:34
Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you.
I'm going to proceed quickly because there's a lot to say. I will try to add to what colleagues have already said in the previous session by focusing on the changing relationship between children and justice as a result of the pandemic, in the context of armed conflict, emergency or natural disaster.
What we have seen since the beginning of the pandemic is that children's relationship with justice is changing. New rules and regulations are being put in place: martial law, curfews and restrictions that ultimately affect children's lives. Schools close, and children are left to fend for themselves because their parents have to work more, travel to distant locations, or fight on the front lines.
There are obviously all sorts of other aspects to consider, such as the recruitment of more defence and security forces. I'm thinking of the Sahel, which, like most countries, has seen a massive deployment of police, constables and military in the streets to monitor the movement of people. As a result, there are far more interactions between children and these security personnel than there used to be simply because the children are not necessarily in school anymore and the interactions are becoming a part of the new norm.
The pressures on families also cause socio-economic conditions to deteriorate and, for many, the fine line between crime and normalcy is becoming blurred. As a result, many children find themselves in situations where they come into conflict with the law for a variety of reasons.
We must also take into account the pervasive presence of technology, both at home and in the poorest countries, where there are armed conflicts. Technology—cell phones are one example—is very present, and children have to deal with it and the opportunities it presents, but often without much supervision. We are seeing a significant increase in child trafficking and sexual exploitation through technology in a context that opens the door to abuse, given the increasing number of interactions between children and technology, as well as a decrease in parental, school or other supervision of access to these tools.
There has also been a decline in the number of front-line workers, that is to say social workers, justice personnel, security forces, labour and civil society inspectors, and so on. There is also a decrease in their capacity to deploy and offer services, especially in preventive but also curative fashion. This means that, for most children, the safety net is shrinking. They are more left to their own devices, and this means—as we have seen here, as in most countries—that the number of sexual assaults, and sexual exploitation, is increasing as a result of the pandemic.
This phenomenon is truly global in scope and affects all countries affected by these realities and where the family bubble has closed. The child's connections to the outside world allowed him or her to have valves, benchmarks or services, but this has reduced access to these services and increased the pressure on parents. This situation may ultimately exacerbate returns to spousal and child abuse, including sexual abuse.
These children are caught in a kind of matrix. I would like to highlight the lack of freedom. It is both a constraint and a timely opportunity—it is worth mentioning. Deprivation of liberty, as we learned last year, is seen in the fact that 7 million children in the world find themselves in preventive detention, in migration camps, in orphanages, without being able to go out. This makes them child detainees or children in trouble with the police, without convictions, without charges. More and more children are in these situations.
The pandemic has meant that, often to protect staff, many countries have unanimously explored certain measures—I'm thinking of Sudan or Palestine, for example. We saw that 85% of children who were detained were released for fear of contamination.
The alternative to incarceration, diversion, has made great strides in just a few months, and there are many possibilities. However, at the same time, curfews and regulations are imposed and children come into conflict with the law. This is the case for many adults as well. The systems are not adequate. Thus, there is a shift toward curtailment of freedom, which is of great concern.
That concludes my presentation.
Thank you for your attention.
Martin Fischer
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Martin Fischer
2021-02-02 15:48
Let me conclude, then, by taking things in a slightly different, albeit very much connected and relevant, direction: reducing the risk of children being exploited in global supply chains.
COVID-19 is pushing millions of children into exploitive work as families' livelihoods evaporate and poverty increases. Whether boys mining metals for our smartphones in DRC, girls being sexually exploited on palm oil plantations in Indonesia, or migrant children being enslaved in the Thai seafood industry, this work is seriously compromising their health, safety and well-being.
There is a clear Canadian connection. In the last months alone, committee members have no doubt seen the media coverage of labour abuses in PPE supply chains, but the problem is much bigger and more pervasive.
In fact, tomorrow, World Vision is releasing a report revealing that imports of food products at risk of being produced by children totalled $3.7 billion in 2019. That's a 63% increase over the past decade, and nearly 10% of all foods coming into Canada.
We'd be remiss to not expect the companies at the top of these global supply chains to be doing their part, but governments have a key role to play here.
Other jurisdictions, including the U.K., Australia, France and the Netherlands, have passed legislation requiring companies to report and take action to prevent child labour and other human rights abuses. In 2018, this very committee tabled a report that recommended the federal government pursue such legislation.
Despite initial consultations, Canada has yet to commit or make this a priority. Now, Bill S-216 has been introduced in the Senate, but really, why wait on the Senate? If Canada is truly committed to championing a just recovery at home and abroad, common sense legislation like this needs to be part of that.
We urge members from all parties to make this legislation a priority.
Chair and members of the committee, we've worked with my colleagues here to ensure we provide you with a complementary overview of these impacts.
To conclude, then, all these issues are linked. That 14-year-old girl in South Sudan experiencing years of conflict and displacement isn't just facing economic uncertainty, food insecurity and increased violence in isolation. She and millions like her are experiencing this all at once, contributing to a vicious cycle. With the effects of COVID-19 layered on top of already dire situations, the consequences are devastating.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today. We look forward to your questions.
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