COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF CHILD CONSIDERS REPORT OF URUGUAY

The Committee on the Rights of the Child today considered the second periodic report of Uruguay on how that country is implementing the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Maria Elena Martinez, Director of Human Rights of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, in introductory remarks, said the Emergency Social Action Plan under the Social Development Ministry covered more than 400,000 individuals. In addition to the overall programme, it included a programme for food for families, assistance to children and families and others. As a consequence, levels of poverty and homelessness had significantly dropped. The greatest decrease of poverty was among those under the age of 15. A National Action Plan to be implemented this year would increase equity and gender fairness, among others. Work had also been done on the democratic institutions, and the implementation of full rights and freedoms. There was significant progress in the rights of the child, the girl-child, and the adolescent.

Among issues raised by Experts during the dialogue with the delegation were whether there was a minimum age from which education was compulsory; whether there were efforts to respect the freedom of expression of children, and whether children got an opportunity to express themselves in the media and in the formulation of programmes in their interest; did children have freedom of association and whether they had associations which had been created by children; the insufficient measures taken to reflect changes in legislation and practice with regards to the Convention, namely respect for the views of the child and whether this short-coming had been removed; how were journalists and the media dealt with to achieve increasing awareness on their part and on the part of the population on how children should be treated; and why there was so much poverty and whether it was because successive Governments had failed to carry out land reforms to break up the hacienda form of agriculture and install a peasant economy or for a range of other reasons.

In preliminary concluding remarks, Jean Zermatten, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of Uruguay, said there had been an open and constructive dialogue, which had allowed the Committee to progress considerably in its knowledge of the situation with regards to the rights of the child in Uruguay. A few questions remained on the table, but this was normal, as so many had been raised. The report had been outdated, and it was hard to respond to all issues. Recommendations would be received eventually, but it was important for Uruguay to harmonise the different laws in the system sooner rather than later, making them work and mesh with existing legal documents. The principles of the Convention and its new paradigms needed to imbue all parts of Uruguayan society, and this was vital.

The delegation also included representatives of the Institution of the Child and the Adolescent, the Ministry of the Economy and of Finance, the Family Programme of the Minister of Social Development, the Judicial Powers, and the Permanent Mission of Uruguay to the United Nations Office at Geneva.

As one of the 193 States parties to the Convention, Uruguay is obliged to present periodic reports to the Committee on its efforts to comply with the provisions of the treaty. The delegation was on hand throughout the day to present the report and to answer questions raised by Committee Experts.

When the Committee reconvenes on Friday, 25 May, at 10 a.m., it will consider the initial report of Sudan under the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (CRC/C/OPSC/SDN/1).

Report of Uruguay

The second periodic report of Uruguay (CRC/C/URY/2) says it is intended to compensate for the failure to submit the corresponding reports in 1997 and 2002. The delay in the preparation and presentation of the periodic report cannot be attributed to a lack of will or a failure by the Uruguayan State to cooperate with the Committee; rather, it was due to domestic events and other factors arising during those years, which delayed fulfilment of the State party’s obligations. The preparation of the report was necessarily subject to the adoption of the new Children and Adolescents Code following a detailed and lengthy parliamentary discussion. It should be emphasized that the process of discussion and adoption of the new code and the incorporation of these new paradigms into domestic law shifted the notion of the child as an object of protection to the conceptualization of the child as a subject of rights, thus answering some of the concerns rightly expressed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child in relation to the former regulatory framework for children’s rights in Uruguay.

An in-depth debate got underway in 1996 on the necessary reform of the piece of legislation referred to as the “Children’s Code”. The 1934 Children’s Code was considered in its day as a model law for Latin America on account of the criteria on which it was based (protection for pregnant mothers, a quick procedure for obtaining a maintenance order, protection of children against social ills, etc.). The advent of the guiding principles for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which shifted the focus from the protection of the child to the child as a subject of rights, prompted a widespread feeling that the Uruguayan legislative framework needed to be updated. The draft Children and Adolescents Code underwent close scrutiny, with large sectors of civil society being asked by parliamentarians for their opinion on the criteria used to formulate certain articles. The Children and Adolescents Code was developed with the participation of a wide spectrum of stakeholders in the discussions on the issue, and was adopted on 14 September 2004, by Act No. 17823.

The new code has introduced various innovations, including the following: persons aged under 18 years are guaranteed the enjoyment and exercise of basic human rights as they grow up; children with disabilities are ensured full protection and children are entitled to participate in all administrative and legal proceedings that might affect their rights; special measures have been adopted to protect children’s identity through footprinting of newborn babies; single mothers, regardless of age, are entitled to legally recognize their biological children; and remedial action and educational measures are given priority over the detention of young offenders in institutions. Poverty increasingly affects Uruguay’s children - it is said to have “a child’s face” - and is the key to analysing positive and negative developments in the national policy framework for children. The progress and/or setbacks in child-related policy-making are best analysed from a rights-based perspective.

Presentation of Report

MARIA ELENA MARTINEZ, Director of Human Rights of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, introducing the report, said the Government of Uruguay was pleased to appear before the Committee to discuss issues with respect to the second periodic report. In doing so, the Government wished to reiterate its broadest spirit of cooperation, as well as its willingness to act with the maximum level of transparency, convinced that the activities of the body were vital for the protection of the rights of children and adolescents. It was important to note that in 2002, Uruguay underwent the gravest economic crisis and social emergency. The new Government, starting in 2005, had set as an objective that all Uruguayans have the same possibilities and opportunities. Economic policy had been taken up in this regard with the aim of paying off the external debt, and with the efforts of society as a whole. The Government had thus been able to attend to various social priorities from a long-term view, with the aim of increasing social development.

The Emergency Social Action Plan under the Social Development Ministry covered more than 400,000 individuals. In addition to the overall programme, it included a programme for food for families and assistance to children and families among others. As a consequence, levels of poverty and homelessness had significantly dropped. The greatest decrease of poverty was among those under the age of 15. A National Action Plan to be implemented this year would increase equity and gender fairness. Work had also been done on the democratic institutions, and the implementation of full rights and freedoms.

The Government was working towards achieving the values of truth and justice, whilst understanding that human rights was not only business from the past, and striving to improve the situation with regards to economic and social areas for the population as a whole. There was significant progress in the rights of the child, the girl-child, and the adolescent.

VICTOR GIORGI, President of the Institute of the Child and the Adolescent of Uruguay, in the context of the introductory remarks, said Uruguay had been working for many years on the rights of the child. There had been a lot of discussion over whether to send the report, and the Government was self-critical, both in terms of the structure and of the format of the report, as well as of its content. As a constant thread, there was a problem of the radicalisation of poverty, which went hand in hand with social exclusion, polarisation, territorial segregation, and the fragilisation of the State as a guarantor of rights. During this period, there had been increased penetration of the paradigm of protection, which was gaining space in civil society as well as in some sectors of the political area.

There had been approval of the Code on Children and Adolescents, and this was an important step. From that moment, three main avenues of work had opened up: the need to amend some articles of the Code that were inherited from earlier times; strong pressure at the political level and in some areas of public opinion for regressive measures, and the need for the Government to resist this; and the implementation of the Code itself. There was a whole series of aspects that were important which were key in the implementation of the Convention: the legislative reforms; the strong links between public bodies responsible for implementation; the earmarking of funds, which was increasing significantly; response to violence against children, which the State was taking on for the first time; and the question of the administration of justice and the application of judicial measures basically aimed at adolescents.

Questions by Experts

JEAN ZERMATTEN, Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of Uruguay, said Uruguay was the first country to promulgate a Childhood Code in 1934, which had been considered to be a model for all of Latin America for decades. There were a number of positive elements, including the adoption of the new code, the various drafts that were currently ongoing including the new law on refugees of 2006, and the ratification at the international level of a number of conventions. The report was not a model in terms of its format and structure, although it did provide a lot of information; it appeared to be outdated and obsolete in some areas. It was therefore difficult for the Committee to assess objectively what the situation was on the ground. Looking at the progress achieved since the last meeting, there had clearly been a lot of progress. However, there were a number of issues that were the subject of recommendations, and these had not been taken into account.

With regards to general implementation measures, Mr. Zermatten was pleased about the new Code on Children and Adolescents, and the new National Honorary Consultative Council on the Rights of the Child and the Adolescent. He asked what was the exact role of this Council. There were a lot of legislative changes, including the Code on Children and Adolescents, the Civil Code, the Penal Code and the Employment Code, and there was concern with regards to the harmonisation of these. There were also a number of programmes under different Ministries, and their different roles required clarification, as did their level of decentralisation and financing.

Uruguay had committed itself, at the World Summit of 2002, to elaborate a National Action Plan, in consultation with civil society. Today there were various sectoral plans and programmes, but the National Plan was still not put in place. There was also a lack of statistical information, in particular with regards to children in particularly difficult situations. Further, the situation with regards to the establishment of an Ombudsperson only for children and their rights required clarification. According to the written replies, it appeared that the broadcasting of the report had been limited, in particular due to its rapidly obsolete nature.

ROSA MARIA ORTIZ, Committee Expert serving as co-Rapporteur for the report of Uruguay, said the Committee held close to its heart the obligations of the different States in order to ensure the Convention was respected. In legal terms, Uruguay was one of the countries of Latin America which took the longest to approve the Convention. The Committee was not very clear on the different roles that the Government bodies had to fulfil in the coordination of general implementation. On top of harmonising laws, it was important for Uruguay to have strong coordination in order to ensure that the new Children’s Code be implemented across the country and in all Governmental bodies. There appeared to be no policy in this regard, and the report seemed to show that the country was not sufficiently organised to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child. There were plentiful resources - what was more lacking was the will to coordinate the efforts of the different institutions.

It was important to have a body to oversee the full implementation of the Convention across the country, including regionally and locally. It was important for the data-collection process to not discriminate, and to follow the Convention’s criteria. The form of the data in the report hid certain figures, such as with regards to pregnant children. The data on child mortality based on geographic areas also required more specific analysis to identify areas that were harder hit and where children were most strongly discriminated against. This data was required in order to better focus on inequalities. Governments were the most responsible for generating and implementing policies, and they needed to guarantee harmonisation and coordination, so that the Convention could positively influence attitudes towards children.

What was the body that dealt with prevention, and why were no resources used to strengthen the entire protection system, Ms. Ortiz asked? It was hoped the recommendations would be disseminated, and that Uruguay would take advantage of them in order to have all the conditions for the full implementation of the Convention to exist.

Other Experts then raised a range of questions and issues, including, among others, whether torture was a problem in the country; whether there was a minimum age from which education was compulsory; whether there were efforts to respect the freedom of expression of children, and whether children got an opportunity to express themselves in the media and in the formulation of programmes in their interest; did children have freedom of association and whether they had associations which had been created by children; the insufficient measures taken to reflect changes in legislation and practice with regards to the Convention, namely respect for the views of the child and whether this short-coming had been removed; the lack of involvement of children in custody decisions; what the Government was planning to do to bridge the wide gap between the general principles stated in the Code and the poor practice in the family, schools, and administrative procedures; that the Code discriminated between children born within and without wedlock, including in the arbitrary attribution of surnames; and what efforts were in place to prevent early pregnancy and to protect young girls from the concomitant disadvantages, including interruptions in education.

Response by Delegation

MARIA ELENA MARTINEZ, Director of Human Rights of the Ministry of Education and Culture of Uruguay, responding to these questions and others, said she had never realised that the delegation would receive such an enormous amount of questions to be dealt with. The Committee saw some issues as essential, and Uruguay did not, but the dialogue was useful to achieve effective implementation of the Convention. Due to the vast amount of questions, some would not be answered, and Experts should not consider this as deliberate. In clarification, there was concern as many of the Experts could not read some of the materials that had been sent, as they were in Spanish only. Uruguay had intended to translate them, but had not had time, and had also thought that the translation would take place within the Committee. Uruguay was one entity, but from 1 March 2005, when the new Government came to power, a new civil servant staff had entered into force. None of those present were in any previous Government, which was why, when the report was suddenly discovered, it had been sent even though some of its conclusions were not agreed with.

The Children’s Code had been debated over ten years, Ms. Martinez said, and was accepted in 2004, shortly before the change of Government. This Code did not satisfy any party - it was far better than previous legislation, which dated from 1934, however, it had many shortcomings. Both before and after its approval, there had been a large number of amendment projects, which the Government had studied, and had realised that some of them were very interesting and could be very useful. There was a post-Doctorate on the rights of the child, and studies in the universities, and therefore in the future there would be people who could address these issues professionally. Adoption was an issue which required updating in the Code, and this project would be completed shortly. The issue of criminal behaviour against children and other international Conventions was also of concern.

Judges were aware of the Convention, Ms. Martinez said, but international conventions were not always fully implemented. New crimes were included in the Penal Code that were covered in these conventions, including the sale of children, child prostitution, and trafficking. There were efforts at harmonisation, and this was why there was the National Consultative Council, which would oversee this process, in particular programmes that covered the needs of children and adolescents, where there were a range of institutions. The Council had no executive power, it was only consultative, but was an excellent resource to be up to date on the various programmes for the child. It was up to the various institutions to carry out awareness programmes, such as on issues related to violence against the child, and in order to promote other options for discipline. Children today did not have a specific place, except for certain police departments and the judges for children, in order to appeal. Uruguay was studying the establishment of a Commission under the Paris Principles, and a collective Ombudsperson who would be able to carry out important work, and was carrying out this initiative in an inclusive fashion, involving civil society and experts on childhood.

On coordination of social policy, particularly with regards to children and adolescents, the delegation said the establishment of information systems that could be used to support the development of social policies for children that would be more effective and efficient was underway. With the change of Government, it had been recognised that social policies were fragmented and uncoordinated, which led to an inefficiency in policy, and a lack of development strategy. Social and economic policies had to be articulated and fit into such a development policy. Economic growth was important, but was not enough for social development. Social policies for children and adolescents should be based on the restoration, protection and promotion of rights. Social policies were not just providing education and health- they were an opportunity for the promotion of social participation of children and in particular the girl child. The Government believed that it should be managing social policy, and this defined the relationship with civil society. The State had the responsibility of guaranteeing to society that the basic rights of children and adolescents would be met. Decentralisation was a key tool and instrument aimed at the participation of citizens.

Uruguay was in the process of redesigning the institutions that dealt with providing solutions for children, the delegation said. There was a Social Cabinet which had a National Council for Social Policies alongside it which ensured coherency. The various new programmes were evidence of the new approach, attempting to provide a sectoral approach, bypassing all policies and providing an institutional structure. The first thing the new Government had done was to place this programme in the Ministry of Social Development, so that it could promote coordination and work in order to strengthen the institutional capacities of the various institutes, public education and public health. A space had been defined to coordinate social policies, the delegation clarified in response to a follow-up question, making it possible for all Ministries to coordinate. The Social Cabinet was the area where these were expressed. It would have been easy to set up a National Plan for Childhood swiftly, as there was accumulated information on this matter, but it had been thought it would be better to build a coordination process first.

Building on four basic rights, including the rights to health, education, and to life, the Government had taken a range of indicators, establishing policy lines to establish, achieve and deliver these rights on a policy level, with goals to be achieved by 2009. The next phase was to generate a process of public discussion on this national process for children and adolescents, the delegation said. Uruguay needed information to determine more than the general statistics - it required more specific information, and an information system that made it possible to determine what was going on in the various bodies, and this did not yet exist, although the whole information system of the National Institute for Children and Adolescents was being changed, and this would allow improved coordination and follow-up. Efforts to guarantee the effective citizenship of all children with effective access to their rights were underway through the Institution of the Child and the Adolescent. New instruments were being created that would be particularly sensitive to violations, allowing to follow-up and monitor the vulnerability and risk of children. This would be crucial, both to protect children and to formulate policy.

Questions by Experts

JEAN ZERMATTEN, Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of Uruguay, asked who was actually affected by a very important problem - that of poverty. As the delegation had indicated, poverty was a major concern. It had two facets in the country - on the one hand it affected children, with a high percentage of these living in poverty, and on the other hand, it was criminalized, with a large proportion of children living on the streets, running high risks of being victims of exploitation and having to resort to crime to survive. There were many programmes, projects and Ministries involved in this issue, and it appeared that from 2006 the level of poverty had decreased, and there was a need to understand how this policy was working, and how efficiency and unity of action was coordinated.

ROSA MARIA ORTIZ, Committee Expert serving as co-Rapporteur for the report of Uruguay, said with regards to the role of the media, it was important to count on this to change attitudes. How were journalists and the media dealt with to achieve increasing awareness on their part and on the part of the population on how children should be treated, she asked, as well as how was the media used to disseminate information on the Convention and to guarantee a change of attitudes among the general population. On Internet use, the delegation should explain how the Government was working with Internet Service Providers to reduce incidents of child pornography. How did new legislation on adoption, which tried to put an end to simple adoption, protect the right of the child to be and remain in their family, she asked.

In other questions, Experts raised a wide range of issues, including, among others, why there was so much poverty and whether it was because successive Governments had failed to carry out land reforms to break up the hacienda form of agriculture and install a peasant economy or for a range of other reasons; the need to elaborate on what had been done and what was being done with regards to the integration of children with disabilities, and whether there were options such as special schools and parent support groups; what was being done to reduce inequalities in particular in the health sector and a request for practical examples in this regards; the need to elaborate what was happening in the field of juvenile justice and whether there were special procedural rules to deal with this issue such as specific courts and what was happening in detention centres; what was being done with regards to regional discrepancies in the mortality rate for example; what was being done for chronic malnutrition in children below one year of age and for the obesity problem; and what was the age for joining the army, and whether there was education in child rights included in their training for members of the army.

Response by Delegation

Responding to these questions and others, the delegation said that a large number of projects had been drawn up, and some were being implemented at this time. Some of these were drawn up by children themselves, and people were very enthusiastic about the projects in general. With regards to adoptions, there had been a strong campaign for national adoptions - international adoptions were not promoted or advocated. The position was to look at the best solution for the child first and foremost, and the Government had unswervingly supported this position. The draft law that was being worked on was associated basically with the elimination of the currently existing two forms of adoption. In future, there would be only one form of adoption. There was a national plan to combat exploitation for sexual purposes.

The Government made serious efforts to change people’s opinions with regards to violence against children, and to eradicate violent punishment. An integrated plan to eliminate violence against children had been set up, with the participation of the United Nations Children’s Fund and the United Nations Population Fund, the delegation said. This was a tremendously important step, as the issue was often brushed under the carpet, but the State was greatly concerned with regards to violence against children and juveniles. On child labour, two major steps had been taken: the approval and adoption of the list of dangerous forms of employment, and directives and guidelines had gone out to implement what was in the Code with regards to this issue, which had caused some conflict. The law provided for fines for infractions.

There were also a range of measures to eliminate discrimination due to HIV/AIDS infection. There were non-governmental organizations that provided services to adults, children and adolescents that had made legal appeals, the delegation said. In rural parts of the country, more local responses were sought to respond to issues of decentralisation. In the current Juvenile Code, young people between 13 and 18 were considered to be accountable at a penal level, and all due process guarantees were provided in that regard so there was no exemption from the law. The responsibilities of judges were clearly defined - some dealt with abandonment, some with other issues. The capital had specialised family judges, and there were some in the regions as well. The rules of the Child and Adolescent Code were clear, and stipulated that detention was an exceptional measure: clear measures were listed so that the young person would not be interned punitively. From the perspective of the executive branch, the situation had improved. Substitute mechanisms and alternatives were used to replace imprisonment.

Uruguay currently did not have a Minister of Justice, the delegation said. During the military dictatorship, it had a sadly-famous Ministry of Justice, which was a stain on the function, and was why the tasks of such a Ministry were divided among other Ministries. With regards to the Supreme Court, there were differences of appreciation, and the Committee needed in that regards to respect the written answers and other reports. The Government’s priorities were education, health, and public security. There were many coordination activities, particularly in the Social Cabinet, which participated in a wide range of activities, including health. What was sought to be promoted was a global understanding of the problems. Social services were provided to families with young children whose parents worked. The Government was directing more support and greater amounts of contributions to those who attended primary and secondary school, in particular the latter. The budget was making it possible to do this from year to year.

The Government considered social expenditure to be a priority, in particular with regards to children and juveniles, the delegation said. With regards to poverty, it was important to recognise the 2002 crisis, which was an abrupt sea-change, and poverty had peaked in 2004, with concomitant results on children. At that time, 51.8 per cent of children were below poverty levels. This had dropped by almost 6 per cent since 2004. It was very difficult to change the poverty cycle in social policy, as it required a development of a wide number of projects on various levels, including education, employment and health. The Government had and was putting into place policies in this regard. Significant efforts were being made to discourage school-leaving, in particular in secondary school. Efforts were being made both to keep children in full-time education, and to bring back those who had left. On teenage pregnancies and the health of adolescents, strategies were being developed, with the construction of physical structures for the health of individual adolescents; a sexual education programme was also being implemented.

There was a strategy which would involve changing the distribution in income, the delegation said, and a change in the method of distribution of tax income was taking place. Before, the system was based on direct taxation, and people were taxed almost on the same level. Work had to be done on the effects of poverty. A huge investment needed to be made to lower the levels of social exclusion and poverty. In terms of population distribution, 60 per cent of the poor lived in Montevideo. Education was not a local responsibility - it was the responsibility of the central Government, and there was a certain amount of decentralisation, but the duty and budget was centralised. In November, there would be the second poll on adolescents and young people - the first for 15 years. There had been no data on the condition of adolescents, and this would provide new information in this regard.

With regards to spreading awareness of the Convention, Uruguay had decided that it needed to train those who took care of children, the delegation said. There was also a budget for training all the staff of the Institute for the Child and the Adolescent in the new perspectives of child policy. There were a series of tendencies in Uruguay to include training in the rights of the child in professional training. Peacekeepers were trained in humanitarian law for one to two years, with the help of the Red Cross, and were also provided with education on human rights in general, particularly with regards to gender issues and the rights of the child. The Church in Uruguay was involved in social issues, in particular with regards to the child, with a large number of educational centres, and centres to train teachers, where human rights were covered fully.

Efforts were being made to improve the situation for handicapped persons, in particular to eliminate barriers to education. There were integration programmes for handicapped children. There were good levels of training for staff in institutions, the delegation said. There was a lack of establishments that had the facilities to treat children that required to be interned for a short period, but some were being equipped. However, policy was not aimed at the institutionalisation approach - instead, prevention was stressed. There were excellent levels of education and social integration of children who had been in these circumstances, and the Government was working to provide family alternatives. Efforts were being made towards prohibiting the sale of alcohol to those under 18, but this was proving difficult.


There were a number of different programmes for street children, the delegation said, and the phenomenon was mainly in certain areas, and particularly during the tourist season. The approach was to take children away from the zones where they congregated, and to reconnect them to their families and original areas, so they could maintain those links. Here also, alternatives to institutionalisation were sought. The press was more interested in commercial aspects rather than in elucidating issues related to the rights of the child. A lot of material had been published on gender and child issues, and work had been done on eliminating gender-based attitudes that were transmitted across the generations, but this was proving very difficult. The Consultative Council could not have fully taken action yet, as it had only existed for a short period of time. There were weaknesses, but it was working with certain strengths in different fields.

Preliminary Concluding Observations

JEAN ZERMATTEN, Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of Uruguay, in preliminary concluding observations, said he wished to thank the delegation for the open and constructive dialogue, which had allowed the Committee to progress considerably in its knowledge of the situation with regards to the rights of the child in Uruguay. A few questions remained on the table, but this was normal, as so many had been raised. The report had been outdated, and it was hard to respond to all issues. It was a shame that there had been no access to documentation in all the necessary languages, and this was due to the United Nations system. The Committee did not hold the State party responsible for this.

Recommendations would be received eventually, but it was important to harmonise the different laws in the system sooner rather than later, making them work and mesh with existing legal documents. This would be crucial for the cohesion of the system. The Committee also wished for an Action Plan, as it had in 1996, and which had not yet been designed or established. The Ministry of the Economy and Finance had had a strategy until 1999, and the Plan should be linked to budgetary constraints. The draft legislation in progress should become laws, and this was very important. These projects needed to be implemented to protect the rights of the child.

The principles of the Convention and its new paradigms needed to imbue all parts of Venezuelan society, and this was vital, Mr. Zermatten said. He concluded by expressing a wish: that the strategy that was used to reduce poverty continued with its current positive trend.


For use of the information media; not an official record

CRC07019E