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18 May 2000
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CRC
24th Session
18 May 2000
Morning
Government Delegation Queried on Budget Allocations for Children,
Differences in Treatment between Boys and Girls
Jordan introduced a second periodic report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning, with a three-member Government delegation fielding questions from Committee members on, among other things, what could be done to increase funding for children's programmes at a time of national financial difficulty and on differences in treatment between boys and girls.
Introducing the report, Shehab Madi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations Office of Geneva, said among other things that school enrollments had increased and that illiteracy, infant mortality, and mortality of children under age five had declined. Poverty remained a problem, he said, and structural-adjustment programmes aimed at repaying external debt had heightened economic difficulties for citizens, increased unemployment, and shifted Government revenue away from other programmes so that it could be used for debt servicing.
Responding to questions about the country's economic difficulties, Mr. Madi said Jordan deserved greater support for the stabilizing role it had played in the region and that had often resulted in its being inundated with refugees who had sapped the country's finances; greater international aid was needed to compensate and to enable the Government to augment its efforts to improve the well-being of children, he said.
The Jordanian delegation contended that there was no legal discrimination or differential treatment of children on grounds of gender in Jordan, with exception of the legal age of marriage, and that a draft amendment now before Parliament would establish a minimum age of marriage of 18 for both sexes if it was adopted. Statistics indicated that school attendance rates for women were higher at all educational levels, although illiteracy was perhaps higher among girls than among boys. There were some gaps between the law and practice, especially given social traditions, but the Government was dedicated to ending any type of gender discrimination, the delegation said.
In addition to Mr. Madi, the delegation consisted of Maren Al Tal, Minister Plenipotentiary; and Saja Majali, Third Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Jordan to the United Nations Office at Geneva.
As one of the 191 States parties to the Convention, Jordan must report periodically to the Committee on the status of the country's children and on Government efforts to implement the Convention.
The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. to continue its consideration of the report of Jordan.
Second periodic report of Jordan
The report (CRC/C/70/Add.4) covers efforts to implement the Convention on an article-by-article basis and notes progress on a number of fronts. The introduction states that Jordan enacted a National Plan of Action for Children for the years 1993-2000 as a result of a national conference held in 1992. There is also a National Task Force for Children which serves as an umbrella for the institutions, departments and organizations in the country that are concerned with children. Over the last eight years, the introduction continues, Jordan has faced internal and external obstacles to efforts to improve the situation of children -- particularly the economic and social consequences of the second Gulf War in 1991, "which had an adverse effect on the Jordanian society and caused a number of problems due to the pressure on basic services within Jordan's limited resources, the increase in the rate of unemployment among Jordanians which has risen to 14.4 per cent, the increase in the rate of general poverty which has risen to 19 per cent, and the increase in the rate of abject poverty, which has risen to 5 per cent. The rates of unemployment and poverty are expected to rise even further due to the bad economic situation and the constantly increasing population. Consequently, these obstacles have affected the services that are provided for children in various fields".
The report announces that a Higher National Committee has been established to strengthen the role of the governmental sector in the field of children and family, particularly in view of an increasing number of cases of child abuse and assault. To supplement that effort, a special unit for family and child protection has been established at the Directorate of Public Security to deal with victims of domestic violence.
Introduction of report
SHEHAB MADI, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations Office of Geneva and head of the Jordanian delegation, said the country had ratified 17 human-rights instruments and was translating the provisions of these treaties into its legal codes. Children made up about half the population. A national task force for children and a national coalition of 600 members from all regions of Government and society were working to coordinate and consolidate the national effort for children. There was a Jordanian Plan of Action for Children for the years 1993-2000, and laws pertaining to children were being revised. A National Child Act had been formulated and was waiting to be adopted, along with a draft law for protection of the child. The country had met most of the objectives outlined in UNICEF's plan for the year 2000.
School enrollment came to 94 per cent for elementary schools and 72 per cent for secondary schools, Mr. Madi said. Illiteracy had declined to 9 per cent for men and 19 per cent for women. Human-rights education had been introduced into school curricula. There was a Children's Parliament. Infant mortality had declined from 64 per 1,000 in 1980 to 28 per 1,000 in 1997; under-five mortality also had declined. Due to tradition and culture there was not even a slight problem with sexual abuse or commercial sexual exploitation of children, but nonetheless Jordanian law prescribed severe punishment for anyone who carried out such acts. Child abuse, the appearance of which had recently been detected, was being dealt with through a Family Protection Unit established in 1997.
Children were not permitted to work until 16 years of age, Mr. Madi said. Unfortunately, poverty remained a problem, with 30 per cent of Jordanians living below the poverty line, although a later study had showed the figure had declined to 20 per cent. Structural-adjustment programmes aimed at repaying external debt had heightened poverty, unemployment, and had caused the shifting of Government revenue away from other programmes to be used instead for debt servicing.
Discussion
Discussion centred on the broad topics of general measures of implementation, definition of the child, and civil rights and freedoms. In addition, answers had been provided by the Government in writing to questions posed by the Committee in advance.
In response to questions from Committee members, Mr. Madi said, among other things, that as a small country Jordan deserved more credit for its role in providing stability in a very volatile region; its record on human rights could match up with anyone's; it had been the only moderating force for a long time during the Arab-Israeli conflict, before others finally got involved. Jordan's budgetary and poverty problems had not been so bad in the 1960s, but every time there was a crisis in the region, the country received waves of refugees, and for a small country the financial task of coping with them was immense. Then it was blamed for lacking resources. Six years after signing a peace treaty, it had received few financial benefits from the peace achieved.
As for crimes of honour, that was an issue the country was fully dedicated to eradicating, Mr. Madi said. The Queen had gone on CNN network and had condemned it. But taking such things out of the legal code did not end them -- what was needed was financial support to help eradicate the practice. The figure stated by the Committee of 30 crimes of "honour" was much exaggerated; he did not know the exact number, but it was lower than that; he also did not know if a single one had involved a child. The point was that greater international help was needed. An amendment proposed to strengthen punishment of crimes of honour would likely soon be the subject of a conference between the Parliament and the Government.
He and other members of the delegation went on to say that the country had made a commitment to strengthen human rights, including the rights of the child; and that all texts and laws related to children were being compiled in a comprehensive encyclopaedia which would be published in the Official Gazette. The country suffered from a lack of resources and the choice of how to distribute the limited amount available was a perennial and thorny problem. External debt cost some $800 million yearly, and was a major drain on other Government services; still, when it came to women and children, the resources needed were found one way or another. Funds earmarked for health services were 6 per cent of the national budget.
Reservations to certain articles in the Convention reflected the fact that 93 per cent of the Jordanian population was Muslim; thus the Sharia was the frame of reference for Jordanian law, and certain conflicts involving adoption and alternative or family care had to be taken into account, the Jordanian delegation said. The text of the Convention in these areas simply was not consistent with Jordanian society and culture.
The minimum age of marriage would be raised to 18 for both sexes if draft legislation now being developed in Parliament was passed, the delegation said; draft legislation would also raise the age of discretion to 12. There did not appear to be street children in the country as such, at least not as conceived in Europe, although some children walked the streets to sell things -- they were street vendors, and there were programmes to monitor their well-being and in fact to discourage them from working in this fashion. The Government worked closely with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and NGOs made a substantial contribution to Government information and knowledge about the situation of children, the delegation said.
Jordan had hosted a large number of Palestinian refugee children for a lengthy period of time, the delegation said; the UNRWA agency was supposedly responsible for them and had done a great deal for them, but Jordan as host country provided them with the full range of services it would provide to any children, within the limits of its resources, so as to improve the living standards of these refugee children. Such services cost more than $ 300 million per year. Palestinian refugees were given full rights, and there was in fact no distinction between the treatment given them and those given citizens, and in fact they became citizens; children in these groups were classified as refugees according to the United Nations system, but they were not treated in any way differently from Jordanian children.
There was no discrimination or differential treatment of children on grounds of gender in Jordan, the delegation said, with exception of the legal age of marriage, and the draft amendment mentioned earlier would establish a minimum age of marriage of 18 for both sexes if it was adopted. Statistics indicated that school attendance rates for women were higher at all educational levels. There was, however, the matter of illiteracy, which was perhaps higher among girls than among boys.
Weekly programmes were aimed at informing children on child and human-rights matters and were presented by children themselves, the delegation said. They were one of many efforts to publicize human rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. NGOs frequently carried out publicity campaigns related to the Convention.
There were no local councils for children as mentioned by the Committee, the delegation said, but the idea was a good one and would be recommended to the Government.
Amnesty International was a respected organization, the delegation said, but its claim that in rare instances in the past children had been tortured by Jordanian police, and that the perpetrators responsible had not been punished, was not true; the names of the perpetrators had been provided to the Government and they had indeed been punished. Jordan was opposed to such treatment of children and acted vigorously to prevent it.
There was no discrimination against minorities, including religious minorities, the delegation said; everyone was free to practice his religion in Jordan.
After further questions, the delegation said that in relation to gender discrimination there might in fact be a difference between legal texts and practice; practice was based on certain social traditions; but when it came to the law, all Jordanian citizens were equal, and there was no gender discrimination. The Constitution stipulated that men and women were equal and the Government was forbidden to discriminate in distribution of public-sector jobs. In spite of that, it was true that there was a certain difference between legal standards and actual practice, and further efforts were being made to eliminate discrimination based on sex, including laws aimed at strengthening inheritance rights, maternity rights, housing, marriage, divorce, and alimony rights.
Children born out of wedlock were Jordanian citizens and enjoyed the same rights as other children under the law, the delegation said. Those who were not recognized by their parents had care and education provided by the Government.
Committee members said they were concerned by apparent provisions under which a woman who had a child out of wedlock could be imprisoned and a woman who was raped could be arrested.
* *** *
24th Session
18 May 2000
Morning
Government Delegation Queried on Budget Allocations for Children,
Differences in Treatment between Boys and Girls
Jordan introduced a second periodic report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning, with a three-member Government delegation fielding questions from Committee members on, among other things, what could be done to increase funding for children's programmes at a time of national financial difficulty and on differences in treatment between boys and girls.
Introducing the report, Shehab Madi, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations Office of Geneva, said among other things that school enrollments had increased and that illiteracy, infant mortality, and mortality of children under age five had declined. Poverty remained a problem, he said, and structural-adjustment programmes aimed at repaying external debt had heightened economic difficulties for citizens, increased unemployment, and shifted Government revenue away from other programmes so that it could be used for debt servicing.
Responding to questions about the country's economic difficulties, Mr. Madi said Jordan deserved greater support for the stabilizing role it had played in the region and that had often resulted in its being inundated with refugees who had sapped the country's finances; greater international aid was needed to compensate and to enable the Government to augment its efforts to improve the well-being of children, he said.
The Jordanian delegation contended that there was no legal discrimination or differential treatment of children on grounds of gender in Jordan, with exception of the legal age of marriage, and that a draft amendment now before Parliament would establish a minimum age of marriage of 18 for both sexes if it was adopted. Statistics indicated that school attendance rates for women were higher at all educational levels, although illiteracy was perhaps higher among girls than among boys. There were some gaps between the law and practice, especially given social traditions, but the Government was dedicated to ending any type of gender discrimination, the delegation said.
In addition to Mr. Madi, the delegation consisted of Maren Al Tal, Minister Plenipotentiary; and Saja Majali, Third Secretary of the Permanent Mission of Jordan to the United Nations Office at Geneva.
As one of the 191 States parties to the Convention, Jordan must report periodically to the Committee on the status of the country's children and on Government efforts to implement the Convention.
The Committee will reconvene at 3 p.m. to continue its consideration of the report of Jordan.
Second periodic report of Jordan
The report (CRC/C/70/Add.4) covers efforts to implement the Convention on an article-by-article basis and notes progress on a number of fronts. The introduction states that Jordan enacted a National Plan of Action for Children for the years 1993-2000 as a result of a national conference held in 1992. There is also a National Task Force for Children which serves as an umbrella for the institutions, departments and organizations in the country that are concerned with children. Over the last eight years, the introduction continues, Jordan has faced internal and external obstacles to efforts to improve the situation of children -- particularly the economic and social consequences of the second Gulf War in 1991, "which had an adverse effect on the Jordanian society and caused a number of problems due to the pressure on basic services within Jordan's limited resources, the increase in the rate of unemployment among Jordanians which has risen to 14.4 per cent, the increase in the rate of general poverty which has risen to 19 per cent, and the increase in the rate of abject poverty, which has risen to 5 per cent. The rates of unemployment and poverty are expected to rise even further due to the bad economic situation and the constantly increasing population. Consequently, these obstacles have affected the services that are provided for children in various fields".
The report announces that a Higher National Committee has been established to strengthen the role of the governmental sector in the field of children and family, particularly in view of an increasing number of cases of child abuse and assault. To supplement that effort, a special unit for family and child protection has been established at the Directorate of Public Security to deal with victims of domestic violence.
Introduction of report
SHEHAB MADI, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Jordan to the United Nations Office of Geneva and head of the Jordanian delegation, said the country had ratified 17 human-rights instruments and was translating the provisions of these treaties into its legal codes. Children made up about half the population. A national task force for children and a national coalition of 600 members from all regions of Government and society were working to coordinate and consolidate the national effort for children. There was a Jordanian Plan of Action for Children for the years 1993-2000, and laws pertaining to children were being revised. A National Child Act had been formulated and was waiting to be adopted, along with a draft law for protection of the child. The country had met most of the objectives outlined in UNICEF's plan for the year 2000.
School enrollment came to 94 per cent for elementary schools and 72 per cent for secondary schools, Mr. Madi said. Illiteracy had declined to 9 per cent for men and 19 per cent for women. Human-rights education had been introduced into school curricula. There was a Children's Parliament. Infant mortality had declined from 64 per 1,000 in 1980 to 28 per 1,000 in 1997; under-five mortality also had declined. Due to tradition and culture there was not even a slight problem with sexual abuse or commercial sexual exploitation of children, but nonetheless Jordanian law prescribed severe punishment for anyone who carried out such acts. Child abuse, the appearance of which had recently been detected, was being dealt with through a Family Protection Unit established in 1997.
Children were not permitted to work until 16 years of age, Mr. Madi said. Unfortunately, poverty remained a problem, with 30 per cent of Jordanians living below the poverty line, although a later study had showed the figure had declined to 20 per cent. Structural-adjustment programmes aimed at repaying external debt had heightened poverty, unemployment, and had caused the shifting of Government revenue away from other programmes to be used instead for debt servicing.
Discussion
Discussion centred on the broad topics of general measures of implementation, definition of the child, and civil rights and freedoms. In addition, answers had been provided by the Government in writing to questions posed by the Committee in advance.
In response to questions from Committee members, Mr. Madi said, among other things, that as a small country Jordan deserved more credit for its role in providing stability in a very volatile region; its record on human rights could match up with anyone's; it had been the only moderating force for a long time during the Arab-Israeli conflict, before others finally got involved. Jordan's budgetary and poverty problems had not been so bad in the 1960s, but every time there was a crisis in the region, the country received waves of refugees, and for a small country the financial task of coping with them was immense. Then it was blamed for lacking resources. Six years after signing a peace treaty, it had received few financial benefits from the peace achieved.
As for crimes of honour, that was an issue the country was fully dedicated to eradicating, Mr. Madi said. The Queen had gone on CNN network and had condemned it. But taking such things out of the legal code did not end them -- what was needed was financial support to help eradicate the practice. The figure stated by the Committee of 30 crimes of "honour" was much exaggerated; he did not know the exact number, but it was lower than that; he also did not know if a single one had involved a child. The point was that greater international help was needed. An amendment proposed to strengthen punishment of crimes of honour would likely soon be the subject of a conference between the Parliament and the Government.
He and other members of the delegation went on to say that the country had made a commitment to strengthen human rights, including the rights of the child; and that all texts and laws related to children were being compiled in a comprehensive encyclopaedia which would be published in the Official Gazette. The country suffered from a lack of resources and the choice of how to distribute the limited amount available was a perennial and thorny problem. External debt cost some $800 million yearly, and was a major drain on other Government services; still, when it came to women and children, the resources needed were found one way or another. Funds earmarked for health services were 6 per cent of the national budget.
Reservations to certain articles in the Convention reflected the fact that 93 per cent of the Jordanian population was Muslim; thus the Sharia was the frame of reference for Jordanian law, and certain conflicts involving adoption and alternative or family care had to be taken into account, the Jordanian delegation said. The text of the Convention in these areas simply was not consistent with Jordanian society and culture.
The minimum age of marriage would be raised to 18 for both sexes if draft legislation now being developed in Parliament was passed, the delegation said; draft legislation would also raise the age of discretion to 12. There did not appear to be street children in the country as such, at least not as conceived in Europe, although some children walked the streets to sell things -- they were street vendors, and there were programmes to monitor their well-being and in fact to discourage them from working in this fashion. The Government worked closely with non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and NGOs made a substantial contribution to Government information and knowledge about the situation of children, the delegation said.
Jordan had hosted a large number of Palestinian refugee children for a lengthy period of time, the delegation said; the UNRWA agency was supposedly responsible for them and had done a great deal for them, but Jordan as host country provided them with the full range of services it would provide to any children, within the limits of its resources, so as to improve the living standards of these refugee children. Such services cost more than $ 300 million per year. Palestinian refugees were given full rights, and there was in fact no distinction between the treatment given them and those given citizens, and in fact they became citizens; children in these groups were classified as refugees according to the United Nations system, but they were not treated in any way differently from Jordanian children.
There was no discrimination or differential treatment of children on grounds of gender in Jordan, the delegation said, with exception of the legal age of marriage, and the draft amendment mentioned earlier would establish a minimum age of marriage of 18 for both sexes if it was adopted. Statistics indicated that school attendance rates for women were higher at all educational levels. There was, however, the matter of illiteracy, which was perhaps higher among girls than among boys.
Weekly programmes were aimed at informing children on child and human-rights matters and were presented by children themselves, the delegation said. They were one of many efforts to publicize human rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child. NGOs frequently carried out publicity campaigns related to the Convention.
There were no local councils for children as mentioned by the Committee, the delegation said, but the idea was a good one and would be recommended to the Government.
Amnesty International was a respected organization, the delegation said, but its claim that in rare instances in the past children had been tortured by Jordanian police, and that the perpetrators responsible had not been punished, was not true; the names of the perpetrators had been provided to the Government and they had indeed been punished. Jordan was opposed to such treatment of children and acted vigorously to prevent it.
There was no discrimination against minorities, including religious minorities, the delegation said; everyone was free to practice his religion in Jordan.
After further questions, the delegation said that in relation to gender discrimination there might in fact be a difference between legal texts and practice; practice was based on certain social traditions; but when it came to the law, all Jordanian citizens were equal, and there was no gender discrimination. The Constitution stipulated that men and women were equal and the Government was forbidden to discriminate in distribution of public-sector jobs. In spite of that, it was true that there was a certain difference between legal standards and actual practice, and further efforts were being made to eliminate discrimination based on sex, including laws aimed at strengthening inheritance rights, maternity rights, housing, marriage, divorce, and alimony rights.
Children born out of wedlock were Jordanian citizens and enjoyed the same rights as other children under the law, the delegation said. Those who were not recognized by their parents had care and education provided by the Government.
Committee members said they were concerned by apparent provisions under which a woman who had a child out of wedlock could be imprisoned and a woman who was raped could be arrested.
* *** *