COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF CHILD CONCLUDES CONSIDERATION OF REPORT OF FIJI

HR/CRC/98/25
25 May 1998

Panel Encourages Country's Efforts on Behalf of Youth

The process of legislation concerning children's rights in Fiji needed to be speeded up and budgets needed to be allocated so that the Government's good programmes did not fail because of lack of financing, the Committee on the Rights of the Child said this afternoon.

In preliminary observations and recommendations issued as it concluded its consideration of a report by Fiji, the Committee said the country must also try to change public attitudes according to the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which looked at the child not only as a person to be loved and protected but as a person with rights, views and opinions.

The Committee's experts said that, in general, the attempts of the Government to protect the rights of children were not bad for a small country. They encouraged it to fulfil all its plans and good intentions.

The Committee will issue its final observations and recommendations on the report of Fiji when it ends itssession on 5 June. The Committee will spend tomorrow, 26 May, in closed session to work on concluding remarks regarding the reports considered so far at this session. It will hold its next public meeting at 10 a.m. Wednesday, 27 May, to take up a report by Japan.

Preliminary Observations and Recommendations

In their preliminary observations and recommendations, Committee experts said their impression of the dialogue was good. The answers of the delegation were very frank and informative; the Fijian officials had made every attempt to respond to questions, even if sometimes they were not equipped properly to do so. In every sector of the report, difficulties were admitted and there were many good intentions expressed to resolve the problems. That showed that the Government was able to look at the situation with open eyes and readiness to accept
criticism.

In general, the attempts of the Government to protect the rights of children were not bad for a small country; the Committee must encourage it to fulfil all its plans and good intentions. The process of legislation needed to be speeded up, and budgets should be allocated so that the good programmes did not fail because of lack of finances. Attention must also be paid to changing public attitudes according to the provisions of the Convention, which looked at the child not only as a person to be loved and protected but also as a person with rights and views and opinions. It was hoped that the dialogue with the Committee would be part of a public debate in Fiji so that it might be used as a lever to enhance the status of children. The Government needed to consider ratifying other international treaties, like International Labour Office Convention No. 138 on the minimum working age, as part of its role in the international community.

The experts said they were impressed by how Fiji tackled the problems it faced and the straightforward way it was working to implement the Convention. The report was satisfactory and elaborated according to the guidelines of the Committee. It was hoped that the delegation would also try and disseminate information about the dialogue with the Committee in schools.

Discussion

In a discussion conducted prior to the issuing of the preliminary observations, Committee experts welcomed the proposal by the Government of Fiji, announced by the Fijian delegation this morning, to prohibit corporal punishment in schools; they wondered whether that prohibition would extend to the family. The Committee said it understood that this issue involved changing attitudes, an expert said, but it should be stressed that it also needed a statement of leadership from the Government in the form of legislation which would condemn behaviour against the dignity of the child. The Government should proceed with legislation and a public campaign to prohibit corporal punishment.

How was personal information of children in schools protected? an expert asked. It seemed that children were identified in all official papers, including passports, by race. Did the Government intend to continue with this racial classification? Concerning the registration of newly-born children, the report was not very detailed about legislation concerning such registration. When children were not registered, this affected their rights and had many other consequences. Did domestic laws require parents to register their newly-born babies?

More information was requested about the adoption system in Fiji, which was only vaguely described in the report, said Committee experts. They asked if Fiji foresaw ratification of international treaties concerning adoption.

Fiji seemed to have policies in place on issues like domestic violence, but no budget to implement them, according to an expert. Was there a budget for shelters for abused wives and children and were there any rehabilitation services provided? How did the Government intend to address the lack of an obligatory review of children placed in institutions? Did the authorities foresee the possibility of appointing an Ombudsman to look into complaints by children?

According to reports, the Pacific region was increasingly being targeted by those who wanted to recruit children for sexual purposes, said one expert. What was being done to counter the sexual exploitation of children? Was there legislation concerning pornography and children? The consumption of drugs and alcohol among juveniles was increasing, but there were no policies or budgetary allocations to address this problem. What did the Government plan to do about
that problem? Were there adequate rehabilitation centres for juvenile drug abusers?

Other questions by Committee experts included: Did the Government need technical advisory assistance to deal with the social welfare of children and domestic violence? Was the Government aware that children with disabilities needed to be educated near their homes, and not to be moved to main centres? Were the drop in the child mortality rate and the parallel increase in the maternal mortality rate connected with the rise in teenage pregnancies? What was the percentage mother who breastfed in Fiji? Was there a policy to deal with the shortage of housing, which in 1994 affected 10,000 people? Had the number of squatters increased since then?

Turning to the issue of education, experts quoted the report of Fiji as saying that education was not compulsory because the cost would be prohibitive and because of traditional attitudes. But the non-compulsory character of education was a serious anomaly in the system to safeguard minors, especially since all schools had been privatized. Were measures being taken to develop accessibility of secondary education, including vocational education, for every child by offering financial assistance to those in particular need? Did budget allocations aim for progressive increases in education budgets and progressive improvements in the quality of education? Why were there more Indian than Fijian students at the University in Fiji?

In response to questions raised by the Committee's experts, the delegation of Fiji, made up of Razia Imrama Shafiq, State Prosecutor with the Director of Public Prosecutions, and Asinate Boladuadua, Director of Primary and Preventive Health Services, said there were no measures in place to protect personal information of children in schools. It was unfortunately the practice of the Government to include racial identification in all official papers; this had not been done away with and needed to be looked into. Concerning the registration of newly-born babies, there were no compulsory registration requirements, and parents had up to one year to register their children. On the main island, most of the hospitals had computers and internal policies required them to record new births and to forward them to the Registrar General. In the more remote islands, that procedure was carried out manually by the district nurses. The system seemed to be working fairly well.

In any society, there were always certain disadvantages for any group belonging to a particular race or ethnic group or minority, the delegation said. That was not a major problem in Fiji, but the Constitution, recognizing that there may be groups who were disadvantaged, guaranteed the preservation of their identities.

Concerning queries on adoption, the delegation said the Adoption Act was very old and needed significant reform. The authorities usually ran into problems because the Act did not cover many situations. Reform of the Adoption of Infants Act was underway as part of the Family Law reforms. These included a proposal by the Social Welfare Department to make regulations and reviews of institutions more stringent. Adoptions were handled by the Social Welfare Department and were confined to the Asian Pacific area, the delegation said. Fiji had considered ratification of the Hague Convention on international adoption and had recently concluded bilateral agreements with Australia and the Philippines. The Social Welfare Department carried out regular monitoring of children who had been adopted. More recently, authorities had started monitoring institutions.

The non-governmental organization Women Crisis Centre had made recommendations to reform legislation on domestic violence, the officials continued. When in force, these would provide more protection measures than were currently covered in present legislation. There was certainly a need for an independent Ombudsman for children's complaints and the authorities would look into this issue. According to the current protection measures, if a complaint of domestic violence was brought to the attention of police or the Social Welfare Department, both would intervene. However, there were no specific programmes to deal with domestic violence. Following public awareness campaigns, there had been increases in the incidence of neighbours reporting
domestic violence.

The delegation said there was a problem concerning maintenance for children not paid by fathers. Magistrates were reluctant to arrest fathers, fearing they would be imprisoned and unable to earn money and pay the maintenance. It would be a good idea for Fiji to adopt a better policy to deal with this.

It was true that drug abuse was becoming worse, the delegation said. To tackle the problem, a National Council for Substance Abuse had recently been set up, supplementing the National Council for Health Promotion. In addition, the Government gave grants to non-governmental organizations with the expertise to tackle particular problems in that area.

Pornography was dealt with under the penal code of Fiji, although it was not specific about sexual exploitation of children, said the delegation. There was a need for new legislation, which the Government was seriously considering, especially to deal with new issues like computer pornography. A Memorandum of Understanding had been signed with Australia in March which included the exchange of intelligence and information about children and sexual abuse and other serious crimes. This was a positive move to combat the sexual exploitation of children.

The delegation said it was aware that children with disabilities should be included in mainstream education institutes but the problem was resources. There were insufficient facilities in rural schools to cater for children with disabilities. But the concept was slowly being introduced in the school system.

The Government through the Housing Authority was doing its best to provide housing for low income families, said the officials. The authorities were also increasing the numbers of primary health care workers and health centres in urban centres to target low-income areas. There was a shortage of doctors in Fiji, but foreign doctors were brought in to help.

Turning to the issue of education, the delegation said compulsory primary education in some regions had started in 1997, and the policy would gradually be increased to include all nine regions of Fiji. The aim was for education to be eventually made compulsory for all children up to the age of 16. The Ministry of Youth was working with school dropouts to try and involve them in various activities. There was also the National Youth Training Centre to train young dropouts.

Schools had been privatized in a partnership between the Government and the communities, the delegation continued. The communities were responsible for running schools but the Government provided the teachers. There were more Indian than Fijian students at university because there was a big difference between children raised by Indian and Fijian families. The former families put more stress on education than the latter. Indian families could also afford to pay for university education, while Fijian families depended on limited scholarships.