Human rights provide advocates with a valuable framework to draw upon and an avenue of response to social injustice when national, state, and local laws and processes fail. CAFETY uses international human rights law to challenge the public to think beyond the rights domestic laws permit and analyzes public policy using this framework.
The United States, however, has not ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child and Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol. These articles, in particular, are relevant to youth placed in residential facilities. In 2009, Save the Children issued a groundbreaking publication to assist advocates better understand the two human rights conventions called: See Me, Hear Me: A guide to using the UN Convention on the Rights of Person with Disabilities to promote the rights of children. Additionally, the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children was adopted by UN General Assembly (UNGA) on 20 November 2009. The Guidelines are intended to enhance the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and other relevant provisions of international and regional human rights law, in matters of protection and well-being of children who are in need of alternative care, or who are at risk of so being. It therefore focuses on two main aspects:
- Ensure that children do not find themselves placed in alternative care unnecessarily; and
- Where out-of-home care is provided, it is provided in appropriate conditions and of a type that responds to the child's rights, needs and best interests.
CAFETY calls on the United States Government to enforce the legally binding treaties it has already ratified. For instance, in 2010, Disability Rights International issued a report on the use of aversives at the Judge Rotenburg Center in MA. The organization submitted their report to Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special rapporteur on torture. The Washington Post reports:
| When "[a]sked if JRC's treatments constitute torture, Nowak responded, "Yes . . . I have no doubts about it. It is inflicted in a situation where the victim is powerless. And, I mean, a child in the restraint chair, being then subjected to electric shocks, how more powerless can you be?" Would the practices employed at JRC be allowed on a convicted terrorist? Nowak: "No, of course not." "This is torture," he said. "Of course here they might say, But this is for a good purpose because it is for medical treatment. But even for a good purpose -- because the same is to get from a terrorist information about a future attack, is a good purpose. To get from a criminal a confession is a good purpose." |
CAFETY calls on the US federal government to meet its obligations under international law of ensuring youth are not being subjected to torture or cruel and degrading treatment by taking affirmative action to ensure JRC and other programs using torture under the guise of treatment are held accountable. CAFETY also calls on the US federal government to align its efforts with those protections afforded youth under the CRPD, prohibiting placement of youth in any institutions or institutional residential program and to regulate and monitor non-institutional residential programs to ensure no youth is being inappropriately placed or harmed in the name treatment.
Additionally, CAFETY understands the deinstitutionalization movement to be a global one. This is especially true as, increasingly, private institutions targeting struggling youth and families operate and exist outside of the purview of the state. Nationals of one country may open and operate a facility in a different country and transport youth relatively freely - with little to no oversight and beyond the jurisdictional bounds of the country from which the child originates. Our efforts, therefore, must also be global in scope. To that end, CAFETY builds upon existing organizations who have paved the way before us, such as Disabilities Rights International, partners with other local grassroots movements such as the Federation of Families for Childrens Mental Health, Campaign for the Ratification of the Covenant on the Rights of the Child or global efforts such as Women's World Summit Foundation, to help ensure that the rights of youth are most comprehensively protected.
UNIVERSAL DECLARATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (ABBREVIATED)
| Article 1 Right to Equality |
Article 16 Right to Marriage and Family |
| Article 2 Freedom from Discrimination |
Article 17 Right to Own Property |
| Article 3 Right to Life, Liberty, Personal Security |
Article 18 Freedom of Belief and Religion |
| Article 4 Freedom from Slavery |
Article 19 Freedom of Opinion and Information |
| Article 5 Freedom from Torture and Degrading Treatment |
Article 20 Right of Peaceful Assembly and Association |
| Article 6 Right to Recognition as a Person before the Law |
Article 21 Right to Participate in Govt and in Free Elections |
| Article 7 Right to Equality before the Law |
Article 22 Right to Social Security |
| Article 8 Right to Remedy by Competent Tribunal |
Article 23 Right to Desirable Work and to Join Trade Unions |
| Article 9 Freedom from Arbitrary Arrest and Exile |
Article 24 Right to Rest and Leisure |
| Article 10 Right to Fair Public Opinion |
Article 25 Right to Adequate Living Standard |
| Article 11 Right to be Considered Innocent until Proven Guilty |
Article 26 Right to Education |
| Article 12 Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence |
Article 27 Right to Participate in the Cultural Life of Community |
| Article 13 Right to Free Movement |
Article 28 Right to a Social Order that Articulates this Document |
| Article 14 Right to Asylum in other Countries from Persecution |
Article 29 Community Duties Essential to Free and Full Development |
| Article 15 Right to a Nationality and the Freedom to Change It |
Article 30 Freedom from State or Personal Interference in above Rights |
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