Political science / political sociology

Valitova A.A.

The Bashkir state agrarian university, Russia

Russia and UN Committee on the Rights of the Child

In August 2010 Russian Government began the rush-work to draft the Russia’s combined 4-th and 5-th State Periodic Report which must be submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in March 2011. In the paper the basic problems of Russian child-protecting system are listed (absence of juvenile justice and of inclusive education, “fabric” and institutionalization of new orphans, mis-diagnostics of mental disability, mass malnutrition, absence of the Federal Body responsible for implementation in Russia of Convention on the Rights of the Child) with the main message: Russia still does not fulfill the repeated recommendations of CRC’s Concluding Observations. However certain events and President’s decisions of the last year give Hope for future.

In March 2011 Russia has obeyed to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) its combined “Forth & Fivth State Periodic Report on Realization in Russian Federation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child ”. We don’t know what will they write in the State Report, but we know for definite that they will have problems to find something good to write about, and also know that we – children’s rights advocates of Russia will surely prepare our Alternative Report after State Report will be submitted to CRC.

Russia systematically ignores and not implement the recommendations of the CRC’s Concluding Observations of 1993 and 1999 correspondingly. Unfortunately the same must be repeated today as regards to the CRC’s Concluding Observations - 2005. But before listing drawbacks I want to emphasize that in the end of 2009 and mostly now in 2011 the Hope appeared that real measures will be taken to improve Russian system of protection of children’s rights. I’ll speak about these perspectives in the end of this note [1].

Now let us look at some basic issues of non-fulfillment by Russia of the CRC’s recommendations:

- The repeated advices to pass the laws on Juvenile justice are still ignored: there is certain progress on the pilot-regions level, but no federal laws are passed yet. Meanwhile the number of Russian minors in custody remains quite high. And what is not less sad – the liberalization of Criminal Code with regards to minors (which is very good by itself) was not accompanied with creation of the social probation system; thus minor-delinquent not deprived of freedom is left in the same environment which made him the perpetrator of the Law.

- In particular there are not created yet effective mechanisms of consideration and positive reaction to complaints about cruel and degrading treatment. At the recent (about 10 days ago) Meeting at the top level with participation of Prosecutor General of Russia there was announced that 100.000 thousand children suffer in Russia from violence, including sexual violence, and cruel treatment during a year. Attention to the problem at the top level may be only greeted. However effective systematic remedies capable to improve the situation are still at hand; unfortunately they are “at hand” during many years.

- Regardless of taken measures and of the direct Order of that time (May 2006) President Putin number of institutionalized children is still extremely high (120 thousands of orphans and twice of this figure more of non-orphaned inmates – children with problems of health permanently living in so called special (corrective) school-internats, children – “temporary” inmates of social shelters, or so called “parental children” placed from the vulnerable families to internats “on the application of parents”, and this application is repeated every year). The effective system of family care of orphans is not built in Russia yet.

- Also there are drastic violations of rights of children in these institutions, which are practically closed for “external eye”. And mis-diagnostics of mental disability is still flourishing; because of it thousands of kids are buried alive in social (non-educational) Children’s Homes-Internats for mentally disabled children. In the last 3-4 years the volunteer movements (mostly of young mothers under 30 united by internet) began to develop in Russia, volunteers see violations of rights and appeal to us since there own criticism of authorities will immediately close for them the very possibility to enter these facilities and to help children.

- There is systematic malnutrition of millions of children living in poor families (officially there are 5 million of them, in reality 2 or 3 times more); plenty of children and families with children, including large families with 3 or more kids, live in the unacceptable housings. And all this exists in the situation of catastrophically decreasing children population of Russia (in the beginning of 1990-th there were 22 million of children from 7 to 17 years old studying in schools; on the 1 September 2010 only 13 million went to school after Summer vacations).

- And there is no inclusive education in Russian schools; traditional educational segregation is still flourishing.

- There is strong geographic disparity in social protection between regions (Russia consists of 84 regions – provinces), it increased drastically in last 5 years. This was one of the main concerns of the CRC’s Concluding Observations – 2005; and this concern was totally ignored. Just to illustrate: in the Report dedicated to health care in Russia presented in September 2011 by the Russian “League of Health” it is said that health care budget allocations per capita differ between some regions 6 times.

- And the last item of this short list: in Russia, in spite of many times repeated recommendation of CRC, it is not created yet the Federal Interdepartmental Body responsible for implementation of Convention on the Rights of the Child, and authorized in particular to read attentively the Concluding Observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child [2].

And we must tell that all our proposals are motivated by the concrete precedents, by the everyday children’s rights work. Committee on the Rights of the Child as a last resort, as a “children’s rights ambulance”.

Literature :

1. The Convention of the United Nations on the rights of the child (is accepted in 1989 by General Assembly of the United Nations)

2. Michael Morgan, Children is our future, 2011