http://www.crin.org/docs/CRC_C_MCO_CO_2-3.doc

Below is a short summary of the key issues from the CRC's 64th session Concluding Observations for Monaco. Click on the link above for the full text, and here for the alternative reports submitted by NGOs and the CRC's Concluding Observations for other States it reviewed.

Administration of juvenile justice: The Committee is concerned that Monaco’s Penal Procedure Code is not fully in line with the Convention, and urges the State to consider raising the age of criminal responsibility (currently 13 years old) and repealing the recent amendment to the Penal Procedure Code which allows children of less than 13 to be placed in preventive detention. Noting that discipline measures currently applied to children deprived of liberty from 16 to 18 are not in compliance with the Convention, the Committee encourages the State to promote alternative measures to the justice system, such as diversion, probation, mediation, counselling, or community service. Finally, the Committee notes the need for the judiciary to receive appropriate training on juvenile justice.

Click here for a report on creating a non-violent juvenile justice system, and here for our child-friendly justice toolkit.

Right to be heard: The Committee welcomes new legislation strengthening children’s involvement in judicial and administrative procedures. However, it regrets that there is insufficient clarity on the right of children to be heard in other contexts.  In view of its General Comment No. 12 (2009) on the right of the child to be heard, the Committee recommends the State continues to promote and facilitate respect for the views of children and their participation in all matters affecting them within the family, schools and institutions, as well as in judicial and administrative procedures.

Non-discrimination: The Committee welcomes new legislation establishing equal rights between children born in wedlock and those born out of wedlock, and equal rights and duties of married and unmarried parents in raising their children. 

Independent human rights institutions (transparency): The Committee recommends that the State expand the functions of the “Conseiller en Charge de Recours et de la Médiation” (ombudsman), to include child-friendly mechanisms to receive complaints by children.

Click here for CRIN’s transparency campaign. 

Children’s rights and the business sector: The Committee notes that while it is possible to file criminal complaints against businesses that do not guarantee children’s rights protection in their chain suppliers, the legislation does not clarify obligations on companies acting out of the State's jurisdiction. The Committee recommends the State give special attention to the requirement that enterprises undertake children’s due diligence in their chain of suppliers and customers, including their activities outside the territory of the State party.

Click here for the Committee’s General Comment No. 16 on children’s rights business.

Corporal punishment: Corporal punishment is banned in schools and in the penal system. Beating a child is a criminal offence in the country, but this is not enough to forbid physical discipline in the home or in alternative care settings.The Committee therefore reiterates its previous recommendations to explicitly prohibit corporal punishment in all settings, including at home, in institutions and all alternative care settings.

Click here for CRIN’s dedicated violence microsite.

Access to information and services (sexual health, drugs): Although Monaco has established a family planning organisation, the Committee is concerned that sexual and reproductive health education for adolescents, especially in schools, is not systematic. Regarding drug and substance abuse, the Committee notes the increasing rate of addiction among adolescents and recommends the State prevents this through education, media and the creation of rehabilitation programmes for children with substance abuse problems.

Read more about children’s right to access information about their health in CRIN’s submission for the 2013 Human Rights Council’s Annual day on the Rights of the Child on the right to health.

Follow up to the Committee’s previous concluding observations and recommendations on the Optional Protocol on children in Armed Conflict

The Committee recommends the State enable domestic legislation to exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction over all offences under the Optional Protocol, including the recruitment and use in hostilities of children under the age of 18. The Committee welcomes the fact that extraterritorial jurisdiction has been established for cruel treatment and torture, mutilation, organ trafficking, rape and other forms of sexual violence The Committee recommends that the State Party ratify the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.

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Previous CRC - Concluding Observations items

• 20/06/2013: Committee on the Rights of the Child's Concluding Observations for Rwanda's 3rd and 4th Periodic Reports
• 20/06/2013: Committee on the Rights of the Child's Concluding Observations for Rwanda's Initial Report on the OPAC
• 20/06/2013: Committee on the Rights of the Child's Concluding Observations for Rwanda's Initial Report on the OPSC
• 20/06/2013: Committee on the Rights of the Child's Concluding Observations for Israel's 2nd, 3rd and 4th Periodic Reports
• 20/06/2013: Committee on the Rights of the Child's Concluding Observations for Armenia's 3rd and 4th Periodic Reports

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Last updated 23/10/2013 15:01:49

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