CAFETY understands that youth and their families have a right to expect safegaurds through government regulation to assure them that facilities (in a largely unregulated industry) are run by qualified individuals using appropriate therapuetic methods- methods whose efficacy has been proven through independent studies.
In an effort to prevent the over-institutionalization of youth, the same rights youth are afforded at detention centers and in psychiatric wards should be afforded to youth placed in residential, behavior modification schools- that is, unrestricted access to a lawyer and advocate in the event they wish to contest their placement or feel they are being harmed. Youth should also be evaluated prior to placement. Any facilitiy which coercively promotes indoctrination, religious or otherwise, of youth and limits their freedom of thought, conscience, speech, and right to be treated with dignity and respect is a violation of their inalianable rights. The same may be applied to 12 step programs and any other facility which impose strict, behavior modification techniques like shaming, fear, isolation, labor, excercise and restraints in a punitive manner to insure a sense of powerlessness in order to facilitate change (rather than growth) of youth. In instances where institutionalization is innapropriate, youth have the right to be treated within their community by systems of care whose efficacy has long been established and by methods which promote diginty and empower youth within their a real life social environment.
Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment
The term "torture" means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.
United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
The year 2005 marks the fifteenth year of the entry into force of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the landmark treaty that guarantees children the right to be free from discrimination, to be protected in armed conflicts, to be protected from torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, to be free from arbitrary deprivation of liberty, to receive age-appropriate treatment in the justice system, and to be free from economic exploitation and other abuses, among other rights. Achieving these rights remains a challenge. Governments must take stronger action to implement the convention's provisions and fulfill their promises to the children of the world. (See Human Rights Watch Q & A- US and the Rights of Children)
In bringing together all these rights in a single cohesive text, the Convention sets out to :
Reaffirm, with regard to children, rights already afforded to human beings in general through other treaties.
Some of these rights, such as protection from torture, are non-controversial in terms of their applicability to children.
Others, like freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and the right to social security, gave rise to heated debate during the drafting process as to whether or not, and under what conditions, children could and should be the explicit beneficiaries. Consequently, reaffirmation was a very necessary means of underlining the fact that children are human beings too.
The Convention contains three major substantive innovations. Firstly, it introduces "participation" rights for children, which were notably absent from previous Declarations. Linked with this is the explicit recognition of the need to ensure that children themselves are informed about their rights. Secondly, the Convention takes up questions never previously dealt with in an international instrument: the right to rehabilitation of children who have suffered various forms of cruelty and exploitation, for example, and the obligation of governments to take measures to abolish traditional practices harmful to children's health. Thirdly, it includes principles and standards that have so far figured only in non-binding texts, notably those relating to adoption and juvenile justice.
The Convention also introduces two significant conceptual elements with important substantive ramifications:
The "best interests of the child" (article 3) becomes the compulsory criterion "for all actions concerning children", necessarily in conjunction with all pertinent rights set out elsewhere in the Convention;
The principle that parents (or others responsible for the child) should provide guidance to their child in exercising his or her rights, in accordance with the child's "evolving capacities" (article 5).
The Committee on the Rights of the Child has identified the following articles as "general principles" that are basic to implementation of all rights contained in the Convention:
Article 6 on the right to life, survival and development;
Article 12 on respect for the views of the child,
Many NGOs have also contested the restricted rights on choice of religion afforded by the provisions of this Convention in comparison with those ostensibly granted to all human beings by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. And several individual NGOs are dissatisfied with the way certain of their specific concerns are dealt with, or with the fact that certain issues are not explicitly dealt with at all, e.g. protection from medical experimentation and the right to pre-school education.
*Cafety.org understands that the basic rights of youth ought be respected, namely the right to express their views, the right to exist free from toture, cruel and unusual punishment, and their freedom to choose their own religious persuasion.
It should be noted that the only countries yet to ratify this Convention are the U.S. and Somalia. Somalia can not do so as it does not have a recognized government.
Child Abuse and Neglect (Human Rights Definition) is any action on the part of an adult or caretaker that intentionally inflicts, or causes to result, pain or physiological discomfort, non-accidental physical or psychological injury, physiological deprivation or sexual violation to a child, including all forms of corporal punishment, for the purposes of punishment, containment, adult sexual gratification, and/or due to lack of developmentally appropriate supervision.
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