REPORT ON THE APPLICATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD IN PERÚ (2000-2005)
PRESENTED TO THE COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE
CHILD
OF THE ORGANIZATION OF THE UNITED NATIONS (UNO)
BY THE PERUVIAN GROUP OF NATIONAL INITIATIVE
FOR THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD (GIN)
(June 1, 2005)
(Synthesis)
The peruvian Group of National Initiative for the Rights of the
Child (GIN) is an organism of coordination constituted in Perú in 1992. At the
moment it is conformed by 35 institutions that work all over the country.
The present
report intends to do a balance of the fulfillment of the recommendations
formulated to the
For the
elaboration of this Report decentralized forums of consultation have been
carried out in which 260 institutions have participated that work by the
childhood and the adolescence in 5 departments (provinces) of the coast,
mountain range and forest of the country. In the
department of Cusco, the forum was made with the Coordinadora de Derechos del
Niño de
Also the
own children and adolescents organized in diverse communitarian associations,
school associations and movements of working children decisively contributed to
this report. More than 400 children and
adolescents expressed their opinions and proposals in forums of consultation
held in Ayacucho, Cusco,
In 2000,
after one decade of the regime of Alberto Fujimori, Perú was in a critical
situation characterized by the expansion of poverty, the institutionalized
corruption, the fracture of the constitutional state and the crisis of the
political and institutional system. It is estimated in more than 2 billion
dollars the amount illicitly taken from the State by the main political
functionaries of that regime, basically originating from the privatization of
the state companies. With those
resources it would have been possible to surpass flagella like the infantile
undernourishment.
The
provisional government of President Valentin Paniagua opened spaces of agreement
in the fight against poverty. He carried out free and clean elections and
installed the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (CVR) to investigate the
sequels of the political violence lived in Perú from 1980 onwards.
The
government of President Alejandro Toledo, in power from July of 2001, has
impelled the National Agreement of Governability with the purpose of arranging
policies of State between the government, the parties and the society. The initiative has undergone serious slips
and, lamentably, many of the policies arranged in favor of the childhood and
the adolescence are not applied nor are known by the State functionaries. It
has also been impelled the decentralization of the State, a necessary process
to bring the State near the local societies.
The shortage of resources is reason for frequent conflicts between the
State and the new regional administrations.
An
excluding economic model affects the democracy and the governability. 54,3% of the
population suffers from poverty; 23.9% is under the line of extreme
poverty. 44% of the economically active
population is in underemployment situation.
The service of the external debt is equivalent to 21% of the national
budget. The economic situation generates
a feeling of uncertainty and hopelessness:
according to a survey, 75% of Peruvians would emigrate of the country.
Perú has a
population of 27'148,101 inhabitants which grows to an annual average of
1.7%. 72% of the population lives in
urban zones, 28% in the rural sector.
There are 11'752,636
children and adolescents.
3'031,100 of them are children under 4 years of age; the children between 5 and 9 years are
3'035,366; between 10 and 14 years there
are 2'945,090 children. The adolescents
between 15 and 19 years are 2'741,079.
In
The main
norms like the Constitution, the Civil Code and the Penal Code, have not been
reformed according to the new conception of the child as an individual with
rights which inspires the Code of the Child.
It is necessary to modify some dispositions of the Civil Code that
prevent the right to identity of children.
There are some legal discriminatory tendencies regarding non-marital
children. It is worrying that a special
commission set up by Congress to review the Penal Code has proposed to reduce
the age of criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 years of age. Economic, social and cultural rights find
great obstacles for their accomplishment and universalization due to scarce
resources and defective public policies.
The
National Plan of Action for the Childhood and the Adolescence to be applied in
the period 2002-2010 as the frame of public policies in this field was approved
in 2002. That same year was approved the
National Agreement of Governability which includes consensual policies for the
childhood. In May of 2003 was set up the
Dialogue For The Childhood, an initiative that gathers
representatives of the State, the United Nations, the international
cooperation, the bussiness community, the NGOs and of the children and
adolescents, with the purpose of advancing in the fulfillment of the National
Plan of Action for the Childhood and the Adolescence.
A budget of
approximately 4 billion dollars is considered necessary to obtain the
fulfillment of the Plan in the next 6 years.
Nevertheless, the Plan lacks budgetary allocation to fulfill most of its
goals and it is not sustained in cross-sectional goals to the different sectors
of the social area of the state and the local and regional governments. It is heavily felt the lack of a system that
articulates the public and private sectors implied in the policies for the
well-being of childhood and adolescence.
In June of
2004 the Government presented to Congress the third annual report of advance in
the fulfillment of the Plan. The
indicators show few advances;
rather a stagnation of the general situation of the childhood and
the increase of risk situations (children living in the streets, child labor,
child beggarhood, sexual exploitation of children and violence against the
children).
The
President of the Cabinet recognized that what has been done "is little and
is insufficient", and recognized "that 2 million children work and
300.000 of them fluctuate between 6 and 12 years of age". He underlined advances in the cover of basic
education and the increase of public investment in health for childhood. According to the Minister of Health, the rate
of maternal mortality would have descended from 185 deaths for every 100,000
born alive in the year 2000 to
The
Minister of the Woman and Social Development (MIMDES) affirmed that the
nourishing attention of children under 5 years of age was increased in 278%
with relation to year 2001. However, the
chronic undernourishment rate in those children is 25% and it has not improved
in the last five years. The Minister of
Education informed that the deficit in the cover of Initial Education reaches
to 46% of children between 0 to 5 years.
Intercultural Bilingual Education covers 20% of children between 3 and 5
years, and 35% of children between 6 and 11 years.
In March of
2005 the National Plan of Action for the Childhood and Adolescence 2002-2010
was given the rank of law by the national Congress.
II. Monitoring of the fulfillment of the Recommendations formulated by the Committee on the Rights of the Child of the United Nations to the Peruvian State in the year 2000
1. The Committee stated that the lasting poverty and socioeconomic disparities specially affect the children and prevent the enjoyment of their rights.
Poverty
affects more than half of the Peruvian population and extreme poverty strikes
to one of every four. In the rural areas
of the mountain range and the oriental forest poverty includes 86,9% and 71,9% of the population respectively. 6'800,000 children and adolescents are under
the line of poverty;
more than 2'100,000 live in extreme poverty. This reality
expresses itself in the rates of infantile mortality, chronic undernourishment,
anemia and deficiency of micronutrients, as well as in the sexual exploitation,
intrafamiliar mistreat and sexual abuse, the expulsion of children to the
streets, child labor to more and more early ages,
school desertion by children.
The
National Plan for the Overcoming of Poverty 2004-2006 has been approved (D.S.
064-2004-PCM). The Plan establishes
important goals to the year
2. The Committee stated that the consequences of the political violence and terrorism maintain a negative impact in the life, survival and development of children.
The report
of the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (CVR), presented to the President
of the Republic in August of the year 2003, describes the impact of the
political violence in the childhood and adolescence. Among the recommendations of the CVR stands
out an Integral Plan of Reparations in favor of the victims of violence to be
carried out by the State. The
Government, by means of the decree D.S. 062-2004-PCM, has sanctioned officially
the Integral Plan of Reparations as the programmatic frame of the action of the
State in this field.
1. The Committee recommended substitute measures from a resocializing perspective with respect to the Decree 895 (agravated terrorism), that reduces of 18 to 16 years the age of criminal responsibility, and to Decree 899 (pernicious juvenile gang) that raises the penalty of internment for adolescents from 3 to 6 years.
Although
the Decree 895 was abrogated in 2000, the commission of the present Congress in
charge of the revision of the Penal Code has proposed to reduce the minimum age
for criminal responsibility from 18 to 16 years of age, this time in general
form and not only for the specific case contemplated in the abrogated
norm. On the other hand, the Decree 899
(pernicious juvenile gang) was completely incorporated to the effective Code of
the Child.
2. The Committee recommended to fortify and to decentralize the Leading Council of the National System of Integral Attention to the Childhood and the Adolescence.
The MIMDES
has not contributed to make of the Leading Council the axis of the system of
integral attention to the childhood. The
office in charge of the technical and normative office of this organism has
steadily been weakend and deprived of financial and human resources. The decentralization of the system is
incipient but has some possibilities of development within the general
framework of the process of decentralization of the country.
The decline
of the Leading Council is a process that already lasts more than one
decade. Created in 1995 with ministerial
rank, by the end of 1996 was deprived of its attributions with the creation of
the MIMDES, where a main office in charge of children and Adolescents as a
normative technical instance of third level in the ministerial hierarchy was
created, which has happened to descend to the fourth hierarchic level with the
last reform of the MIMDES. In
replacement of the National System of Integral Attention of the Childhood it
was constituted in
3. The Committee recommended to fortify the centers for defense of the children denominated Defensorías.
The Defensorías
del Niño y del Adolescente are the services most
widely spread in the national territory.
They are programs of alternative justice that promote the rights of the
childhood through conciliation and agreements of parts. It is calculated that they take care of more
than 100 thousand cases a year on a varied range of familiar issues and
everyday problems and conflicts, from untimely inscription or rectification of
birth certificates and demands of alimony to school problems and
arbitrary detention of children or teenagers.
In spite of
that, the change of most of local authorities as a result of the 2001 municipal
elections, harmed as much to the Defensorías of the municipal sector in the
allocation of resources as in the continuity of the specialized personnel. We also fear for the continuity of the school
defensorías which have not been considered as part of the services
offered in the 2005 Institutional Operative Plan of the Ministry of
Education.
4. The Committee recommended to take measures to reduce the economic and social gap that affects the childhood and the adolescence.
The
indicators on poverty demonstrate that the situation goes on being
substantially the same as in 2000. The
same may be said with respect to the indicators on the situation of the
childhood and the adolescence. The
socioeconomic differences, the exclusion and the marginalization maintain the
levels of the last decade.
5. The Committee recommended to guarantee the principle of the best interests of the child in the policies and programs.
There is
not a suitable internalization of this principle in the society and the
State. Problems for its application in
the justice administration subsist, like the prejudice which considers the
adolescent who infringes the law as a "young delinquent", and the
lack of specialized courts and public prosecutor’s offices outside of the State
capital.
6. The Committee recommended to protect the children of the effects of violence, mistreatment, sexual abuse and exploitation, including their rehabilitation in all respects.
In the last
years the number of denunciations for physical and psychological mistreatment
and sexual abuse has dramatically increased.
It is estimated that 50% of the children receive daily beatings on the
part of their parents. Children are not
unfrequently mistreated in the schools.
Although the services of defense have expanded, they show enormous limitations
of professional and economic resources and put emphasis in the legal
aspect. The preventive-promotional and
the psycho-social aide is very reduced.
The Law Against Familiar Violence (Law 26260) and the Law 26763
which seeks for the erradication of violence through preventive criterion, are
both in force. This year the Law 27637
was promulgated that creates temporary homes of refuge for child victims of
sexual violation. Nevertheless the Penal
Code does not contemplate child mistreatment in its diverse modalities so that
an effective sanction of the aggressor be
allowed.
In
Hundreds of
children and adolescents work in the markets of supply as cargadores
handling heavy loads which are out of proportion to their physical
strength. Others work in the extraction
of stone for construction (for example in the quarry of Carabayllo). More than a thousand children work in
Huachipa making bricks. Thousands of
children collect materials in the rubbish dumps.
In spite of
being all too clear the vulneration of the rights and the norms of protection
of the children and adolescents who work, we do not have knowledge of sanctions
applied by the Ministry of Work to companies or people by breach of such
norms. Although the Code of the Child
establishes the obligation to make "a list of dangerous labors and
activities (...) in which it is forbidden to hire adolescents", to date it
has not been approved nor published none, even though activities like those
mentioned in the previous paragraph are publicly known.
7. The Committee recommended to guarantee the right of all the children to the inscription of birth.
It is
estimated that 15% of the children are not registered in the civil registry. On
the other hand, the cost of the untimely inscription is onerous. In order to obtain the inscription of
undocumented children campaigns of information have been developed by the
MIMDES, the Coordinating Board Against Poverty and
other institutions of the civil society.
On the
other hand, in spite of being constitutional norm "not to mention the
marital or unmarital birth condition" of children and adolescents, this
one is violated by an administrative norm of the National Registry of Identity
(RENIEC), according to which, being maritally children, the last names will not
be registered in the birth declaration if only the statement of the mother
exists; consequently, the boy will be identified with both maternal last names.
8. The Committee recommended to promote the participation of the children, the expression of its opinions and their right of association.
A program
in the schools exists at the moment denominated School Municipalities whose
objective is to promote child participation.
Outside that, the instances of political decision are limited to listen
of formal way the children and adolescents but not very often take into account
their opinions and proposals in the plans at local, regional or national
level. Diverse efforts from the
nongovernmental organizations and mixed instances like the National Commission
for the Rights of the Children and Adolescents and local commissions exist that
promote child participation within the framework of the National Week for the
Rights of the Child and the Adolescent.
9. The Committee recommended to develop alternatives to substitute the institutional trusteeship of children promoting their right to a family.
In the
period 1993-2002 no lees than 2.272 children were adopted. In spite of it we consider that there are
still serious deficiencies in the implementation of a program that offers a
solution to the problem of the child orphaned or judicially declared in
abandonment. The orphanage houses that
must shelter children and adolescents in abandonment find themselves in deficient
conditions. Many already have covered
their capacity, which determines that many children and adolescents in
abandonment ramble thorugh the streets exposed to a
permanent violation of their rights.
Shelters specialized in discapacitated children and adolescents are
almost non-existent.
10. The Committee recommended to guarantee to all the children the access to the basic services of health.
A high
infantile mortality rate of 33 children passed away for each thousand born
alive at national level subsists, which means that annually 20.000 children die
before turning the first year of life.
The average disguises deep differences between the zones of the country. In
A high
percentage of children with chronic undernourishment prevails. Specially serious is
the undernourishment of the children under 5 years, with emphasis in the first
two years of life. The chronic
undernourishment is a problem of high prevalence. 25% of the children under
5 years present deficit of stature for their age. According to a 1993 census by the Ministry of
Education, 48% of the children registered in first degree were affected by
chronic undernourishment. The most
affected province is Huancavelica with 72%.
The anemia
is the nutritional health problem of greatest prevalence in
The
VIH/AIDS affects children and adolescents more and more. Children infect
themselves by vertical transmission through their mothers. Until the year 2003 the Ministry of Health
had registered up to 1.974 seropositiv pregnant women, which is considered far
below the real number. Hardly 8% of the
seropositiv pregnant women received antirretroviral therapy. It is estimated that up to the year 2001
there were 17 thousand orphaned children whose parents had died of VIH/AIDS
infection. Many of these children are
discriminated in their community or school.
11. The Committee recommended to fortify the educative policies in order to improve the educational system and the programs that it develops.
Different
evaluations agree in indicating a serious crisis of the educational degree of
quality. In the year 2001 the Unit of
Measurement of the Educatinal Quality (UMC) verified that
none of the students of the sixth degree of primary schools did not achieve
minimun standards of text understanding.
Results of the same order arose from the research by the Latin American
Laboratory of Evaluation of the Quality of Education (1999). In the year 2002 alarm rose when the results
of the evaluation done by the Program for International Sudent Assessment
(PISA) for UNESCO and the OECD in 45 countries were known, according to which
Peruvian students lack the basic skills for reading, writing and calculation,
being in the last place between the participant countries.
Only 3% of
the infants between 0 and 2 years receive early educative attention, proportion
that rises to 57% between 3 and 5 years of age.
At least 224.836 children in school age do not go to the primary
school. In Madre de Dios, Cajamarca,
Huánuco, Junín,
Some
advances are registered in the field of the Intercultural Bilingual Education
(EBI) such as standardized alphabets of the four regional varieties of quechua,
of aymara and six amazonian languages; materials for the educational
qualification of teachers; pedagogical proposals of language education and
comprehension of interculturality, promotion of the EBI in indigenous
populations. Nevertheless a suitable
training for the teachers of EBI does not exist and teachers only dispose of a
single urban-inspired educational program that they do not arrive to understand
nor to diversify suitably.
A problem
that demands urgent attention is the one of the education of the rural
girl. In 1997 it was calculated that
201.462 female children and girls of the countryside did not attend the school. It is estimated that 5 of 100 children in
poverty do not attend the school, number that is duplicated in the case of the
extreme poverty.
12. The Committee recommended a legislative reform that allows to raise to 14 years the minimum age for admission to employment and to consider the ratification of the OIT Conventions 138 (on minimum age) and 182 (on the prohibition of the worst forms of child labor).
OIT
Conventions 138 and 182 were approved by the Congress in 2001 and ratified in
2002. On the other hand, although the
Ministry of the Woman and Social Development (MIMDES) elaborated a listing of
dangerous labours in 2004, it has to date not been approved. Article 37º of the General Law of Education
promulgated in 2003, creates a new educative modality, the Alternative Basic Education, that must take care of the necessities of the
students who need to make compatible study and labor. The Ministry of Education prepares a plan to
implement it.
13. The Committee recommended that the deprivation of freedom be used as a last resort before infractions committed by adolescents; and to improve the conditions of life of those children and adolescents who are held in detention centers.
According
to the Police, in
1. Improvement of the quality of life of the
population and the children
The
economic policy must be oriented not only to maintain the macroeconomic
balance, but mainly to improve the quality of life of the population in
general, and specially of the children and adolescents. Promoting adult employment and revenue,
suitable home conditions, as well as the utmost extension of the basic
services, would allow more favorable familiar surroundings for the development
of the children. In particular, the
investment on health attention should be increased significantly, as well as on
nutrition and education of quality, with emphasis in the children under 5 years
and the countryside children.
2. Improvement and fulfillment of the law
Assure the
effectiveness of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and other
international treaties. Perfectionate the Code of the Child and the civil and penal codes
under the principle of the best interests of the child. Prevent that the age of penal responsibility
goes down to 16 years, as it is proposed in the draft of the Revisory Special
Commission of the Penal Code of the Congress.
Modify the Code of the Child suppressing the chapter on “pernicious
gang” that raises to 6 years the deprivation of freedom for convicted adolescents. Fully adequate the Code of
the Child to OIT Conventions 138 and 182. Guarantee the unrestricted application of the
rights and protective measures to the children and adolescents exposed to risk
situations.
3. Fulfillment and decentralization of the
National Plan of Action for the Childhood
Guarantee
the fulfillment of the goals of the National Plan of Action for the Childhood
supplying it with the necessary budgetary resources at national, regional and
local level. Regional and local planning
of action for the childhood articulated to the development plans and the
participative budgets, putting emphasis in the attention to the first
childhood, in the improvement of the educative quality at all levels, the
reduction of infantile and maternal mortality, the reduction of chronic undernourishment
and the protection against mistreatment and sexual abuse, protection of working
children, street children, as well as prevention of adolescent violence. Fulfillment of the goal set in the National
Agreement of Governability to spend at least 6% of the gross national product
in the development of the educational services of the country.
4. Institutionality with participation of the
society
Institutionalize
spaces of agreement between the State and the society for the design and
application of childhood policies. Access to information for suitable monitoring and evaluation. Reconsider the proposal of a Leading Board
for the National System of Integral Attention to the Childhood and the
Adolescence, with equal participation of the State and the civil society at the
highest level. Constitute local and
regional Leading Boards.
5. Promotion of the civil rights of the children
Promote the
participation and the opinion of the children and adolescents, with due respect
to their own cultural background and organizational experience, in the
community and the school. Take into
account the opinion of the children in all the decisions that affect them. Promote a culture of good treatment for the
eradication of child mistreatment.
Expand and improve the systems of protection like the public prosecutors
offices, family courts, ombudsman offices and the centers for the defense of
child rights (defensorías), assigning greater resources and promoting
the qualification of the personnel and its continuity. Abrogation, because of inconstitutionality,
of articles 392º of the Civil Code and 37º of the Resolution 128-99-RENIEC,
that prevent, for the case of the children whose inscription in the registry is
made by only one of the parents, to register the last name of the other
ancestor.
6. Right to health
Reduce
radically infantile and maternal mortality improving the extension and quality
of the services of health. Nourishing
reinforcing and drastic reduction of the chronic undernourishment of children under 5 years through programs of infantile health, diurnal
infantile care, initial education and the organizations of women. Promote maternal lactancy until 2 years of
age and in a exclusive way until 6 months, as well as
the regulations on infantile feeding and the commercialization of maternal milk
substitutes. Respect to the labor rights
regarding the protection of the maternal lactancy. Promote the infantile day-care centers in the
labor centers.
Fortify and
expand an integral service of health for the benefit of the population in
situation of poverty and extreme poverty, with emphasis in the attention to all
the children and adolescents. Promote
the care of the mental health of the children and adolescents in the family,
the school and the community. Implement
the National Plan of Mental Health taking care of the present needings of
children and adolescents as victims of intrafamiliar and social violence. Fortify and expand the Modules of Attention
to Infantile Mistreatment (MAMIs) and psycho-social aide programs in the
centers for the defense of the child ans the adolescent and in the branch of
the judiciary specialized on family issues.
7. Quality education respectful of cultural
diversity
Extend the
cover of education, specially in the initial and
secondary levels, and in rural areas.
Improve the educative quality adapting it to the geographic and cultural
diversity. Increase until 6% of the gross national product the amount destined
to the Educative sector, according to the goal established by the National
Agreement of Governability. Promote the
entrance of children to the educative system according to the normative
age. Extend the hours of annual study to
at least 1.200 hours. Assure that the
students conclude at least 11 years of study.
Develop an
educative policy according to the ethnolinguistic diversity, the
interculturality and the growing capacities of local cultures for the
sustainable handling of the ecosystems and the wide biodiversity of our
country.
Extend the
opportunities so that adolescents have access to superior or intermediate
training centers that allow greater possibilities in the labor market. Improve labor and wage conditions of
teachers.
8. Urgent measures of protection in face of risk
situations
Approving
and applying of the National Plan of Eradication of Child Labor and the
Protection of the Adolescent Labor, giving priority to the elimination of the
worst forms of child labor. Regulation of the minimum age of
admission to employment according to OIT Conventions. Guarantee the
protection, social security and education of the working children.
Develop
policies of protection of the street children, promoting their reintegration to
the family, the school and the society.
Extend the specialized services of attention of child mistreatment and
sexual abuse. Improve the quality of the
services of the centers of defense of the child and the adolescent. Promote actions of prevention of child
mistreatment and sexual abuse.
Application
of the recommendations of the Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (CVR) for
the integral attention of the populations, families and children victimized in
the armed conflict, incorporating to the reparations the necessities of
reconstruction of the community, the sustainable productive development and the
psycho-social attention.
Perú, June
1º, 2005
Group of
National Initiative for the Rights of the Child
(GIN-Perú)