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TEMPORARY SANDBOX - ROUGH DRAFT

Persistent Violation of Children's Rights

In 2012 three UN expert committees rated the country’s performance on meeting rights commitments — and returned a failing grade. As the primary provider of child protective services in Ontario, CAS inherits the national responsibilty of providing adequte solutions and services to insure the safety and well being of the children in Canada. In 2012 Canada's ability to fullfill these requirements was reviewed by three UN expert committees, these reports unanimously concur that the services provided by Canadian providers are inadequate and often deterimental, particually to children of minority backgrounds. In light of Canada's inability to fullfill fundamental requirements of the international charter, there is strong consensus for policy reform to establish not only federal oversight of child services but also international moderation to ensure decisions are made in the best interests of children.

Child Rights Information Network

The Child Rights Information Network CRIN comittee reported that Canadian child protection services and related legislation continue to repeatedly violate the rights of children in the following areas:

• Use of, and conditions in, detention for children; regarding serious flaws in the 2003 Youth Criminal Justice Act and Bill C-10.

• Violence against children, including domestic violence; regarding a lack of established mechanisms for ensuring the safety of children.

• Sexual exploitation of children; regarding concerns that the agency responsible for child safety has not taken sufficient action to address other forms of sexual exploitation, such as child prostitution and child sexual abuse. In particular, the Committee is gravely concerned about cases of Aboriginal girls who were victims of child prostitution and have gone missing or were murdered and have not been fully investigated with the perpetrators going unpunished.

• Inequality in the provision of social and welfare services for vulnerable children, including those from minority backgrounds; continued prevalence of discrimination on the basis of ethnicity, gender, socio-economic background, national origin and other grounds.

• Poverty disproportionately affecting children from minority backgrounds; the Committee is concerned that income inequality is widespread and growing and that no national strategy has been developed to comprehensively address child poverty despite a commitment by Parliament to end child poverty by 2000.

• Barriers to access to education for children from minority backgrounds and discrimination against those children within the education system; regarding a lack of initiatives to improve educational outcomes for children in vulnerable situations, as well as the inappropriate and excessive use of disciplinary measures applied to Aboriginal and African Canadian children in school.

• Gap between healthcare provision for children from indigenous backgrounds and other Canadians; The health status of Aboriginal people in Canada has been described by RCAP as both a tragedy and a crisis.

• Discrimination against First Nations women and children in relation to personal status rules; The Committee noted concerns of long-standing issues of discrimination against First Nations women and their children, in matters relating to Indian status, band membership, and matrimonial real property on reserve lands have still not been resolved.

Committee on the Rights of the Child Report

The United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child has finished a 10-year review of how Canada treats its children and how well governments are implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child. This committee expressed concerns that aboriginal and black children are dramatically overrepresented in the criminal justice system, which is attributed to flaws in the Youth Criminal Justice Act. According to The CBC the committee determined Aboriginal youth are more likely to be jailed than graduate from high school. The report also wants Canada to:

• Adopt a national strategy to implement children's rights, alleviate poverty and prevent violence.
• Address high levels of violence against aboriginal women and girls.
• Ensure child victims of violence have access to restraining orders and other means of protection.
• Help troubled parents take better care of their children instead of sending them into foster care.
• Ensure disabled children are not forced into segregated schooling.
• Monitor the use of drugs to treat mental conditions in children, to curtail over-medication.
• Eliminate user fees in public schools.
• Increase the availability of free or affordable daycare.
• Rehabilitate Omar Khadr.
• Stop detaining child refugee claimants.
• Act to prevent obesity among children.

UNICEF Canada Charter for Children Report

United Nations Children's Fund UNICEF has released multiple reports that share the same views as the other committees and further highlights the critical failures in how Canada handles issues affecting children. The UNICEF Canada Charter for Children published in 2011 effectively outlined how CAS has failed to fullfill it's civil obligations which the Canadian government rattified under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1991. UNICEF also concurs that Canadian child protection services continue to violate children's right and neglect fundamental issues regarding the safety of children in Canada. Included in the UNICEF Canada Charter for Children is the request to appoint an independent National Children’s Commissioner who can advocate for children. “Currently, there is no one in the federal government with the primary responsibility to consider the well-being of Canada’s children,” says David Morley, UNICEF Canada President and CEO.

The priorities in the UNICEF report are as follows:

• Paying attention to issues affecting children.
• Providing children the best start.
• Closing the gap in life chances for Aboriginal children.
• Reporting expenditures in child related services.
• Investing a fair share for children in developing countries.
• Commiting to saving lives.