OTTAWA –
The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child has published a report expressing serious concerns about the well-being of children in Canada – especially those who are indigenous.
“The Commission is deeply concerned about discrimination against children in marginalized and disadvantaged situations,” the report said on Thursday.
The Committee cites structural discrimination against indigenous and black children, “especially as regards their access to education, health care and an adequate standard of living”,
The Commission also noted that children with disabilities, migrant children and children from ethnic minorities have different access to their rights depending on the province or territory.
This is the first time the commission has examined Canada’s adherence to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in a decade, when such a scathing progress report was issued.
The federal government did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
The Convention, signed by Canada in 1991, is a global treaty that sets out the full list of rights for all children under the age of 18. Almost every country in the world has promised to protect and promote these rights.
The Treaty is based on four main principles: the right to non-discrimination, the best interests of the child, the right to life and development and the right to participate.
UN experts, including lawyers, social workers, child protection administrators and a doctor, have identified several areas where these principles are not being followed in Canada,
In one example, experts said the government should provide specialized health care to Anishinaabe children in Grassy Narrows First Nation, Ont., Who suffer from severe and chronic physical and mental problems as a result of mercury contamination in water.
The report also notes the discovery of unmarked graves found at the sites of several former residential schools.
BC First Nation Tk’emlups te Secwepemc announced in May 2021 that ground-penetrating radar had detected what were believed to be the remains of some 200 children on the site of the former Indian housing school in Kamloops. More potential graves have been discovered since then.
Indigenous and black children are still overrepresented in alternative forms of supervision as foster care, often outside their communities, the report said. They are also at higher risk of abuse, neglect and violence in alternative care than other children in Canada.
“In addition to these specific groups of children, the commission called on the federal government not to protect the rights of all children in our country,” said Sarah Austin, founder of Children First Canada.
UNICEF ranks Canada in the bottom one-third of the 38 rich countries in terms of child welfare in 2020, ranking the nation 30th after Greece, Latvia and the United Kingdom.
“Most think it will be at the top, the world’s leading children’s country,” Austin said. “So there’s a big difference between perception and reality.”
Among several recommendations, the commission called on Canada to establish a federal, independent commissioner for children’s rights who is able to receive, investigate and deal with children’s complaints “in a child-sensitive and child-friendly way.”
Other recommendations include ensuring that children’s access to public health does not depend on their parents’ immigration status, and repealing section 43 of the Penal Code, which allows the use of “reasonable force” in disciplining children.
Several federal bills aimed at banning corporal punishment of children have failed in parliament, Austin said.
The committee called for a national strategy to prevent violence against children and said the Canadian child protection system continued to fail to protect indigenous children in particular from violence.
Austin said the report was a failure for Canada to enforce fundamental rights for all eight million children in the country.
Several of the recommendations were originally made by the committee in its latest report about a decade ago, but no action has been taken.
Bill Jeffrey, executive director of the Center for Health Sciences and Law, said in a statement Thursday that Canada ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991 “and has spent the past three decades streamlining its failure to fully implement those rights.” national and provincial law. “
This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 9, 2022.
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