Inquisition 21
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Children's rights and hypocricy
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Britain and US put children’s rights last
Britain and US put children’s rights last
Kevin Kirk
“The safety and welfare of children is a concern for everyone in this Administration, and we are all mindful of the many challenges you face as you work to prevent harm to children and to treat those who have suffered.” President George W Bush to the 20th annual San Diego international conference on child and family maltreatment - January 2006
The UN Convention on the Rights of a Child, which was conceived in 1989 and entered into force in 1990, is a noble document in that it lays down the rights of children throughout the world. The admirable aims, which are admittedly difficult to achieve in many poor third world countries, include the rights of children to schooling, anonymity, family life and freedom from state execution, slavery and exploitation, amongst others. The convention (which can be seen in full at http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/k2crc.htm) lays out the rights in plain and unequivocal language and is something that should, rightly, be rigorously pursued and to that end it has been ratified, albeit with religious reservations in some cases, by almost every country in the world.
Later the USA insisted that a clause should be added to the document regarding child pornography. The rest of the UN demurred and so this clause never made it into the actual convention document, but, instead, became an optional protocol; The UNHCR Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography
This protocol was the direct result of the International Conference on Combating Child Pornography which was held in Vienna’s Hofburg from the 29th September to 1St October 1999. It was a distinctly US led conference that featured the usual rhetoric about more international cooperation to stamp out child porn with the Vice Chancellor Wolfgang Schussel representing the host, and then President of the EU, Austria, and American Secretary of State Madeleine Albright representing the rest of the world.
As heart warmingly fluffy as it was, what was not mentioned was either a definition of what exactly constituted child pornography, nor the raising of the age limit to 18.
The US had long been out of step with the rest of the world regarding the age limit or even what constitutes child pornography. The rest of the world used their own age of consent as the benchmark whereas the US used 18, thanks to Meese and the US Child Protection Act of 1984. This Act changed the meaning of ‘sexual conduct’ to include non-obscene pictures of children, in fact images of fully clothed children at play were deemed to be portrayals of sexual conduct if possessed by anyone other than the child’s immediate family. The Act also raised the age of ‘children’ for purposes of the law from sixteen to eighteen, using Meese as the raison d’etre. Which in itself is perverse as Meese was blatantly flawed as they suppressed all evidence that contradicted what they’d been told to conclude and should therefore have been ignored.
The odd thing is that the text of the optional protocol did not contain any mention of the age limit as being 18 whereas the version created by the US released on Christmas Eve 2002 contained the phrase ‘It protects children up to age 18 by treating the actions of exploiters as criminal acts which merit serious punishment’.
This appears to be have been inserted into the version of the protocol signed by President Bush that was not in the original. Incidentally this was later used as the excuse by the UK government to raise the upper age limit on the definition of child pornography from 16 to 18 in the Sexual Offences act 2003. The government stated that it was to bring it into line with the convention, which was untrue.
The UN charter specifically states that in order for an amendment to be made then a quorum of at least one third of the signatories must be present when the amendment is debated and for it to be carried then two thirds of those present must have voted in favour of it.
This was never done, so its legality must be in doubt; particularly as the actual wording of the US version of the document differed in a number of ways from the original that was signed by other countries.
The only official amendment that was tabled was by Qatar who stated that it was contrary to Sharia law and France and Germany objected to Qatar’s assertion.
Interestingly the US took over 2 years to ratify it, whereas the other signatories signed and ratified it almost as soon as the ink was dry. So much for standing up for children’s rights.
This protocol then morphed into the EU’s Framework decision on combating the sexual exploitation of children and child pornography.
This is essentially a cookie cutter copy of the former without the flowery language. But it does contain the clause that anyone who possesses child pornography can have their benefits stopped, their property seized and their business wound up, whereas in the UN version it was only assets that directly related to the production of child pornography that could be seized. This was inserted primarily on the UK’s insistence.
This decision will, in the very near future, be used as an excuse for the police, in the guise of CEOP, to seize the assets of anyone caught with an indecent image of a child on their computer. CEOP, remember, is supposed to become self funding by seizing the assets of the child porn barons in the UK except their aren’t any (unless they count themselves – after all they made over £15 million last year from selling child pornography in the form of their lucrative Childbase database). So instead they will be going after the assets of the downloaders. So if you are a convicted Oree (i.e. you accepted a caution in order to keep your name out of the papers even though you were innocent) then you can expect a return visit when they pop round with an estate agent to value your house. Possession of child pornography, it seems, being the only law that seems to attract secondary and even tertiary punishments long after the original debt to society has been paid. Even real child molesters don’t suffer like downloaders do. Recently a child porn collector was sentenced in the UK to an indeterminate (i.e. whole life) sentence, whereas child rapists have attracted 3 year to 5 year (one who raped a 13 month old baby) sentences.
It was the UNHCR protocol that underpins the assertion that there is a consensus regarding child pornography on the internet.
And indeed it was signed by 105 countries (later that number rose to 192), the problem was that it was only ratified by 42 of those countries at the time of it entering into force (rising later to 67) which rather undermines the assertion that there is indeed a world wide consensus. There are a number of reasons for this ranging from the fact that there is no actual definition regarding exactly what child pornography is, through a disagreement with the definition of the age to certain countries objecting to it on religious grounds.
It was this optional protocol, rather than the underpinning convention, that has attracted the rhetoric and funding in both the US and the UK. Indeed both countries have ignored many of the safeguards inherent in the convention itself.
For example in the UK the convention is routinely ignored in the courts, even though it is overarching and must, by international law, be considered during trials. The most blatant derogation is regards to the privacy of children particularly when they are the children of anyone caught up in the nightmare child porn laws, even as innocent suspects. And of course their right to live with their parents except when decided by a court of law on evidence of proven danger – not a policeman or social worker’s whim.
This is in direct contravention of Article 2.2 of the UN Convention on Children’s Rights which reads “States Parties shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that the child is protected against all forms of discrimination or punishment on the basis of the status, activities, expressed opinions, or beliefs of the child's parents, legal guardians, or family members.”
And in article 3 of the same convention (which Britain ratified on 16th December 1991) it states “In all actions concerning children, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration.”
Which is being breached without sanction by the judiciary in this country. Take for example Judge Patrick Eccles QC who said in a case in November 2005 “The interests of the free reporting of this case outweigh the interests of the children for the reason that otherwise, in cases of this nature, the more serious the offence, the stronger would be the case for it never to be reported."
NO THEY DON’T!
If there’s one thing I hate its people who abuse children and take away their rights; irrespective of who they are or whatever the reason.
The interests of the child must always come first. But then this has been the defining underpinning to the way that this whole paedophile witch hunt has been conducted where the authorities are quite happy to abuse children in order to … er … supposedly prevent children being abused.
We’ve signed up to the convention, so the least we can do is to implement it in its entirety, not just the bits we like. Those children are going to suffer terribly at school, and in society as a whole, and all because the editor of the local rag wanted to increase his sales.
You can pretty much lay the blame for this blatant disregard of the convention firmly at the feet of Vera Baird MP QC who is fanatically opposed to any form of anonymity for MEN involved in alleged sex crimes and their families, although she is equally vehement against naming women even when they have been found guilty of falsely accusing men of rape (she calls them ‘victims’). The people of Redcar should throw this blatantly discriminatory woman out at the next election.
On the other hand, the United States never breaches the terms of the convention because IT NEVER SIGNED IT! For all the fine words regarding protecting the rights of children worldwide, they are only one of two countries (the other being Somalia) that thinks so little of children’s rights that they couldn’t bring themselves to agree to get rid of such evils as child labour, exploitation and slavery. The reason was that they wanted to retain the right to execute children which was a total no-no in the convention. So instead they made a huge song and a dance about child porn to show they are at least doing something.
So the next time you hear George W Bush bang on about upholding the rights of children you will know he is a fraud and a liar and totally deserving of international contempt.
Children's rights and hypocricy
Thought crimes law is coming
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