Black marks on children’s rights

If it was a school report, it would probably read along the lines of: "Could try harder."

"Must do better."

The message from the United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of the Child to New Zealand is stark: "Urgent measures" are required to address violence, child abuse and neglect, to improve state care and juvenile justice and the standard of living for children,  and to target child labour and  disparate outcomes for minority groups and Maori and Pasifika children.

Those are the main areas of concern outlined in the committee’s "concluding observations" on the fifth periodic report on New Zealand.

(As a signatory to the  UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, we must report every five years on how we are fulfilling our human rights obligations. A group including Social Development Minister Anne Tolley went to Geneva to speak to the committee last month as part of the process.)

The committee recommends a less stigmatising name for the  Ministry for Vulnerable Children (which is replacing Child, Youth and Family), better resources for the Children’s Commissioner, a comprehensive mechanism for  data collection and better information sharing between ministries involved in the care and protection of children.

It wants New Zealand  to "strengthen its currently limited" awareness-raising, dissemination and training in terms of its obligations under the convention and ensure the report recommendations are "fully implemented" and "made widely available".

It notes various comments about a ‘‘child-centred approach’’ are key to the Government’s reform of Child, Youth and Family, but recommends this  be explicitly enshrined in law.

It warns any private care outsourcing in the new system must be closely monitored, and says the changes  must be adequately resourced.

Not only are we criticised for "insufficient" protection measures and front-line resources, the committee slates our child labour credentials given our "continuing absence of a minimum age of admission to employment" and failure to include children in new health and safety legislation, and slams our juvenile justice progress.

This latter aspect is being addressed (the Government is  considering the recommendation to raise the Youth Court age to 18), but the rest of the 16-page document is effectively a big black mark for child care and protection, rights, equality and transparency.

Many of the recommendations reiterate those in previous reports.

The committee does "welcome" progress in  some areas (the sale of children, child prostitution and pornography, the Vulnerable Children Act and on child mortality).

However, it says despite national "public debate and attention" around the issue,  it is "deeply concerned about the enduring high prevalence of poverty among children". 

It wants a "national definition" of poverty and a "systemic approach" to the issue and reminds us of our obligations  under the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

The final report makes for  awkward reading for a supposedly egalitarian, First World country which was once a  leader in children’s health.

Also awkward is the Government’s outright rejection of the committee’s recommendations.

It won’t be changing the new ministry’s name and it won’t establish a child poverty measure or target (also sought by Children’s Commissioner Andrew Becroft and most other parties).

To be fair, as Prime Minister John Key states, the issue is complex, and the Government is tackling it on some fronts (it most frequently quotes rheumatic fever,  GP visits and benefits).

But Mr Key’s intransigence to the recommendations is at odds to his recent grandstanding to the UN about its obligations and inaction in Syria, and his push for change-maker Helen Clark for the UN’s top job.

We can’t pick and choose which parts of global conventions  suit us.

Otherwise we are no better than those we readily accuse of all manner of human rights breaches and crimes.

Comments

Your final comment that by not doing better for children in New Zealand, "we are no better than those " who deliberately slaughter thousands of civilians, is absurd.

Totally absurd.

Did you notice that is not the final comment?/ The point is that to pick and choose what suits us in a UN agreement we've signed to is Banana Republican.