COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF THE CHILD CONCLUDES DISCUSSION OF REPORT OF BARBADOS

CRC/99/22
19 May 1999


Calls, in Preliminary Observations, for End to Corporal Punishment in Schools,
Better Collection of Data

The Committee on the Rights of the Child offered preliminary observations this morning to a report from Barbados, recommending, among other things, that measures allowing corporal punishment in schools be revoked and that greater efforts be made to reduce teen-age births and abortions.

The Committee also said it would be helpful if the Government compiled better and more extensive statistics on child rights, including on the topics of child abuse and suicide among young people.

Overall, the Committee termed the report well-presented, adding it was well backed up by responses offered by Government officials to questions.

Formal, official conclusions and recommendations on the report -- Barbados's initial presentation to the panel -- will be issued towards the end of the Committee's three-week session on 4 June.

A four-member Government delegation presented the document Tuesday morning, and answered Committee questions at meetings Tuesday and this morning. Queried on the issue of corporal punishment, the representatives said efforts were being made to change attitudes on such forms of disciplining children and that, while corporal punishment was allowed in the schools, it was rarely carried out, could only be imposed by high-ranking school officials, usually the headmaster, and was strictly regulated.

Discussion this morning also focused on the general topics of family environment and alternative care; basic health and welfare; education, leisure and cultural activities; and special protection measures.

As one of 191 States parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, Barbados is required to provide the Committee with periodic reports on efforts to implement the treaty's provisions.

The Barbadian delegation consisted of George Griffith, Director of the Barbados Family Planning Association; Joan Crawford, Director of the Child Care Board of Barbados; Sandra Mason, head of the country's Committee on the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child; and Simone Rudder, Chargé d'affaires of the Permanent Mission of Barbados to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

The Committee will meet this afternoon in private with representatives of the United Nations Children's Fund at UNICEF's Geneva office; it will reconvene in public session at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 20 May, to begin review of a report from St. Kitts and Nevis.

Discussion

Responding to further questions after a number put yesterday on the issue of corporal punishment, the Barbadian delegation said the Government did recognize that corporal punishment was not in the best interests of the child, and efforts were being made to persuade society to use other methods of discipline; however, the law on the Prevention of Cruelty to Children indicated 'moderate chastisement' could be an appropriate way to discipline children; a number of cases had come before the courts and it had been decided in most instances that if the punishment amounted to abuse -- broken skin, serious bruising, or similar symptoms -- then the punishment was not 'moderate'.

Every effort was made to avoid use of abortion as a 'contraceptive', the delegation said; those seeking more than one abortion were required to undergo increasing review before the procedure was performed; counselling, including counselling on birth control, was widely available and was part of the follow-up process. Efforts were being made to prevent the spread of HIV/AIDS and to prevent discrimination against those who had the disease; there were a number of HIV-positive children within the school system, and they were treated the same as other children; their names were not known except to health professionals in a strategy to prevent discrimination against them and because it was known that the disease was not spread by casual contact. When a child was orphaned by AIDS, efforts were made to place the child with a close relative and to keep school attendance steady; if relatives were unwilling, foster care or, if necessary, other care was provided.

Guidance and counselling offices in the secondary schools could refer young people confidentially to psychologists and psychiatrists, the delegation said; homelessness and street children were not a problem, although occasionally women with children were evicted; when that happened the social services moved very rapidly to provide them with shelter.

More boys were abandoned than girls; hence more were in State care; the disparity appeared to result from a cultural feeling that boys were more troublesome than girls, and that girls were more useful for performing chores around the home; efforts were being made to change the perception and to makecitizens more willing to adopt boys -- currently those seeking adoption showed a preference for girls.

The Ministry of Health had established a breast-feeding promotion programme; research into the
prevalence of breast-feeding was being carried out; community health officials and nurses routinely encouraged parents to breast-feed for as long as possible, the delegation said.

Research on cases, rates, and causes of suicide would be carried out soon, the delegation said, but statistics currently were not available, nor were good figures to be had on numbers and types of disability among children.

As soon as allegations were made of any case of sexual abuse of a child, the Child Care Board
investigated, if necessary with the help of police, the delegation said; the child was taken to a doctor for examination; in general it was found that families were willing to assist, so that the trauma of removal of the child from the family was not necessary; but counselling was provided if a child was removed from the family to prevent recurrence of abuse. Programmes were carried out as early as primary school to teach children about what was 'appropriate' touching. In court proceedings, delays seemed to be a problem, although it was known that in cases involving children speed was of the essence; efforts were being made to make the system work more quickly, but effecting change would take a while; during court proceedings, if a case advanced that far, efforts were made to allow the child to testify.

Domestic abuse complaints were treated as a matter of urgency; counselling was routinely ordered, if necessary under a court order. Misbehaviour by intractable children was in a number of cases a statutory offence, the delegation said -- the measures were intended to enable parents to seek official help for children whose behaviour was proving very difficult; it was a way of coping with persistent truancy, for example; first offenders did not come before the courts; efforts were made to persuade children to change their behaviour voluntarily; children who ran away from home were often reported to the police under such provisions, the intention being to find them quickly, and usually police involvement consisted of informally returning the children to their homes.

Schoolchildren were provided with textbooks in the public schools free of charge, the delegation said, although in the secondary schools parents were asked to contribute 20 Barbadian dollars per term to maintain the books and to prevent their maltreatment; parents who had difficulty paying that fee were excused or provided the money from social-service sources; a white paper on education reform had been written and would be made available to the Committee.

Sentences for children sent to juvenile detention facilities usually were for three years; if a child in the juvenile system proved too difficult to control and was deemed dangerous to others, the child could be transferred after court review to an adult prison; children in adult prisons generally were kept in the female section of the prison, simply because there was space available there, and they were kept separately from adult prisoners; currently there were no children in prison. The law on sentencing children to juvenile-detention centres limited sentences to three or five years; it was understood that this approach was inflexible and unfair and unlike sentencing procedures for adults, and efforts were being made to change it; it also was understood that such sentences in a number of cases were too long, although they often were shortened through procedures for releasing children to home care.

When a child was arrested, the first duty of the police officer was to call the parents; if a parent could not be found, a probation officer had to be summoned -- police could not proceed without a probation officer present; children were never kept overnight at police stations but usually spent the night at home; if necessary they were kept at facilities of the Child Care Board or at the Government Industrial School.

A Government Ministry of Social Transformation was established specifically to deal with poverty, the delegation said; the intent was to make social-service aid more efficient -- recipients could go to one agency rather than several -- and also to work in cooperation with business and such sectors as the church community to increase employment and to identify and help all who were subject to poverty.

Preliminary conclusions and recommendations

Committee members offered brief preliminary observations to the initial report of Barbados. Formal concluding remarks will be issued in writing towards the end of panel's three-week session, which concludes on 4 June.

Committee experts said, among other things, that the report had been well presented and well backed upby the delegation's responses to questions; and Barbados's National Committee for monitoring the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child was a laudable initiative.

They recommended, among other things, that gathering of statistics and data be improved on child abuse, child suicide, and other topics related to child well-being and child rights; that the Convention's non-discrimination articles in relation to education be studied further; that corporal punishment no longer be allowed in the schools and that efforts be expanded to reduce corporal punishment in the home; that efforts be made to reduce the number of teen-age births and abortions -- currently, 15 per cent of births and 20 per cent of abortions in the country involved teenagers; and that review and reform of the educational system now under way be thoroughly pursued.