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Ligue
pour la défense des droits de l’Homme en Iran (LDDHI)
The UN expresses
deep concern
about
Iran
's record on children's rights
Paris
-
Tehran
,
31 January 2005
:
The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and its members in
Iran
,
the Iranian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LDDHI) and the
Defenders of Human Rights Center (DHRC) welcome the Concluding
observations adopted on
28 January 2005
by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. That body, composed of
independent experts, examined
Iran
's
state report on the implementation by the Iranian authorities of the UN
Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), ratified by
Iran
in 1994.
The
UN experts basically reiterate the same concerns as in 2000, regarding
notably the age of majority, discrimination on the ground of sex or the
use of the death penalty against minors. “It is a shame for our
country that the authorities did not adopt enough concrete measures to
make sure that children's rights are fully protected in Iran”, said Shirin
Ebadi, Secretary General of the DHRC.
The UN Committee reitrates its “deep concern that the age of majority
is set at pre-defined ages of puberty for boys at 15 and for girls at 9,
because it implies that boys from 15 to 18 years and girls from 9 to 18
years are not covered by the provisions of the CRC”. The UN experts also
express their deep concern “at the persisting discrimination of girls
and women” and notably point to the high drop out rates of girls in
rural schools upon reaching puberty. They declare the domestic provision
on the custody of children after divorce as arbitrary and contrary to the
CRC. That provision prevents the court from taking the best interests of
the child into account when deciding about who should get the child's
custody as “the custody is determined on the basis of the child's age
and is discriminatory against the mother”.
The
UN experts deplore the fact that executions of persons having committed
crimes before the age of 18 have continued, including on the very day of
the examination of
Iran
's
report by the Committee. The Bill on the Establishment of Juvenile courts
recently proposed by the government would notably abolish the death
penalty for crimes committed by persons under 18. However, the Bill is yet
to be adopted by the Council of Guardians, which blocked numerous
progressive draft legislations in the past. In addition, the Committee
deeply regrets that “persons below 18 who have committed a crime can be
subjected to corporal punishment and can be
sentenced to amputation, flogging or stoning”. The Committee
considers those punishments totally incompatible with the CRC.
The
Committee also points to discrimination against children on account of
their father's nationality; that situation currently affects a large
number of children whose mothers are Iranian and fathers Afghan. Those
children have no birth certificate and no nationality. In addition,
children [of Afghan refugees] whose parents are not registered in
Iran
cannot be enrolled in schools, while refugee children cannot attend school
free of charge.
The
UN experts regret that cooperation with NGOs remains “selective and
limited”. Indeed, independent NGOs in
Iran
are not recognised by the authorities, and their members are regularly
harassed.
“We
hope that this time, the Iranian authorities will seriously take into
account the recommendations from the UN experts. Submitting reports to the
UN treaty bodies is only one side of the coin – it remains meaningless
if the recommendations are not duly implemented”, concluded Karim
Lahidji, President of the LDDHI and Vice-President of the FIDH.
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