COMMITTEE ON ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND CULTURAL RIGHTS CONSIDERS REPORT OF BELGIUM
The Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has considered the third periodic report of Belgium on how that country implements the provisions of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Francois Vandamme, Councillor General, Head of the Division of International Affairs at the Federal Department for Employment, Work, and Social Dialogue of Belgium, introducing the report, said Belgium was convinced that the discussions it had with the Committee were a strong point in the continued relations between Belgium and the United Nations, and was very much committed to fulfil its international obligations to all United Nations bodies, including civil and political rights, the rights of women, and with the International Labour Office. For five years now, since its last appearance, Belgium had done work on awareness-raising and wider information dissemination at all the different levels on the subject of the Covenant and its implications, as well as the comments of the Committee at previous sessions.
Among questions and issues raised by the Experts were whether Belgium really thought it could reach the figure of 0.7 per cent of GDP given to development assistance by 2010; had Belgium written off any of its third world debt, and what were the figures of that debt of certain developing countries; what Belgium intended to do to eliminate the restrictions on the right to strike; what the Government was doing with regards to its age-related fund and the expenditure that would be required to cover pensions and health costs in the future; whether social assistance benefits were enough to ensure a decent standard of living and if not did the State party intend to increase them; what the penalty was for the crime of domestic or conjugal violence, what sort of cases had been brought before the courts, and a request for statistics as to the real extent of the phenomenon; and issues related to equal opportunity of access to education, and to what extent was there a group of schools with very low standards with regards to quality of education.
Francois Vandamme, in concluding remarks, said Belgium was made up of entities which organised their cultural life locally. Belgium had chosen a Federal system, and this choice should be respected.
The delegation of Belgium included representatives of the Permanent Mission of Belgium to the United Nations Office at Geneva, the Federal Departments for Social Security, for Justice, for Social Integration, and for the Interior, as well as representatives of the Institute for Equality of Men and Women, the Flemish Community of Belgium and the Flemish Region, the French Community of Belgium and the Walloon Region, the Ministry in charge of Cooperation, and the Federal Body for Cooperation for Development.
The Committee will issue its concluding remarks on the report of Belgium towards the end of the session, which concludes on Friday, 23 November.
The next meeting of the Committee will be on Tuesday, 13 November at 3 p.m., when it will take up the second and third periodic reports of Paraguay (E/C.12/PRY/3).
Report of Belgium
The third periodic report of Belgium (E/C.12/BEL/3) demonstrates Belgium's commitment to the protection and promotion of human rights at the international level and the importance that Belgium ascribes to the work of the United Nations treaty bodies, which largely contribute to the attainment of those objectives. In 2006 Belgium submitted to those bodies five human rights reports regarding, in particular, economic, social and cultural rights; racial discrimination; discrimination against women; torture; and the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict. The report provides detailed information in response to the observations made by the Committee subsequent to the oral presentation of Belgium's second report. In the interest of simplicity in the presentation, the comments and information regarding most of the observations are contained in an attached document.
The constitutional language on equality and non-discrimination does not, according to case law, prohibit differences in treatment. Differences are lawful if they are objective and reasonable, due regard being had to the aims and effects of the law. The principle of equality is violated if the means are unreasonable and disproportionate to the end. Article 23 of the Constitution stipulates that every individual has a right to a life consistent with human dignity; provides that, to that end, the law, decree or rule referred to in article 134 shall guarantee the economic, social and cultural rights, taking into account the respective obligations, and determine the conditions for the exercise of those rights; and specifies some of the economic, social and cultural rights.
In line with a decision taken on 14 November 2000 by the Inter-Ministerial Conference on Equal Opportunities, Belgium's first National Action Plan for combating violence against women was drawn up, in May 2001, in coordination with the Regions and the Communities. A related note of cooperation was signed with the federated entities in 2002. Wages are determined according to minimum legal wage schedules set by collective bargaining. Collective agreements take precedence over individual contracts of employment, and the provisions of individual contracts which contravene collective agreements are null and void: in such cases they would be superseded by the amounts laid down in the collective agreement. A minimum income for employed wage earners is guaranteed by various provisions, such as those stipulating a minimum wage or guaranteeing an income for full-time unemployed who find a part-time job.
Introduction of Report
Francois Vandamme, Councillor General, Head of the Division of International Affairs at the Federal Department for Employment, Work and Social Dialogue of Belgium, introducing the third periodic report of Belgium, said Belgium was convinced that the discussions it had with the Committee were a strong point in the continued relations between Belgium and the United Nations, and was very much committed to fulfil its international obligations to all United Nations bodies, including civil and political rights, the rights of women, and with the International Labour Organization (ILO). Belgium invested considerably in a number of United Nations bodies, and was currently a member of the Security Council, was working on the agenda for decent labour conditions at the ILO, and had contributed to work on the Optional Protocol on the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
For five years now, since its last appearance, Belgium had done work on awareness-raising and wider information dissemination at all the different levels on the subject of the Covenant and its implications, as well as the comments of the Committee at previous cycles. There had been a number of activities at the inter-Ministerial level to ensure that the report was coherent. It was important to give an opportunity to all levels to be involved in the preparation of the report, and endorse the policies adopted. This, and the fragmentation of some aspects of administration, explained the length of the report. Court case law in Belgium had used the Covenant to support its decisions in various cases in parallel with other international instruments or legal arguments.
Questions by Experts
Taking up articles one to five of the Covenant, Experts raised a range of questions and issues, including what had concretely been done with the recommendations that the Committee had previously issued and what steps the central Government had taken to follow these up; which specifically targeted action plans had been adopted and what had been their effects; what Belgium’s position was with regards to the elaboration of an Optional Protocol to the Covenant; whether Belgium really thought it could reach the figure of 0.7 per cent of GDP given to development assistance by 2010; had Belgium written off any of its third world debt, and what were the figures of that debt of certain developing countries; whether the labour market in Belgium was ready to accept the sort of migrant who would not be setting up permanently in the country; why the provisions of the Covenant did not have direct legal force and could not be applied under national law, when the provisions of the Covenant took precedence over national law and whether they were justiciable; how did the Flemish and Walloon communities co-exist, whether this was peaceful co-existence, and whether there were any forms of discrimination between the two groups; and how successful had been the integration of immigrants such as from North Africa and Turkey, and to what extent the immigrants were willing to integrate.
Response by Delegation
Responding to these questions and others, Mr. Vandamme said with regards to the legal effects of the Covenant in Belgian law and jurisprudence, there was a system of constitutional law which divided competencies between the federal level and the federated units, which latter had legislative authority at the same hierarchical level. There was a uniform legal system - the organization of courts was a matter for federal competence, and there was no separate system in the different federated entities. The Covenant and other international conventions were ratified by the Federal Parliament, and the Parliaments of the Federated Entities if they were competent in that field. Not all the provisions of the Covenant had a direct effect, as this meant the creation of jurisprudence as to whether the provision was sufficiently clear - this was why some of the articles had been illustrated and developed in the legislative arsenal. Belgium’s analysis of jurisprudence showed that the Covenant was invoked to support an interpretation of Belgian law, rather than giving direct effect to the Covenant itself. There were a series of fundamental rights set out in the Covenant and these were spelt out in the Constitution. The courts did not base their decisions directly on the Covenant, a member of the delegation said.
Federated entities constitutionally had their own responsibilities for application of the Covenant to the extent that they had legislative and regulatory authority - there was no control at the Federal level on their action, but there was judiciary control which could revise interpretations, Mr. Vandamme said. The jurisdictional level was very much based on international conventions, and questions were submitted to it in this respect, and often with regards to matters of discrimination.
On peaceful coexistence between Flemings and Walloons and whether certain groups considered themselves to be minorities or not, Belgium’s political organization was a democratic system based on representative Parliamentary democracy, and therefore, due to demography, some groups were more numerous than others, however, there were mechanisms to protect the interests of communities if they felt that actions by others seriously affected their interests, and this at several levels, including the Parliamentary level. The delegation said there was presently an “affaire courante” Government which took measures that were required, and was entirely capable of taking the measures required to deal with any current affairs. The Parliament was functioning. The current political situation was related to the fact that there was a proportional election system, and any Government was therefore a coalition Government. The current talks related to the difficulty in coming up with such a coalition. In countries with such a proportional system there had been Government negotiations which lasted for more than 200 days - it was politically difficult, but was not an exceptional situation. There were institutional and balancing mechanisms, all of which were functioning, and were based on consultations. There were several different systems which forced the majority to consult and to reach not necessarily consensus, but decisions which were acceptable to the majority in both parts of the country. It was a very complicated system, but there was a practice in the Federal State which should make it possible to restore the situation.
The Belgian civil service was no longer reserved to Belgians only, the delegation said. It was accessible, statutorily, to all nationals of the European economic space - it was only jobs requiring exercise of public authority which were restricted to nationals. The civil service used a lot of contractual labour, and there was no restriction of nationality there, and the jobs were all open to everyone. This had helped to increase diversity of recruitment, and to open the civil service to the greatest possible number. Recruitment of judges was done on the basis of objective criteria, with competitive examinations as the main means of entry. Access to the judiciary could not be subject to discrimination, and it was open to all. Belgium had realised after the second periodic report that there were still some institutions which required more information on the impact of the Covenant, and determined that it had to begin from scratch in explaining the Covenant and its functions.
On protection of migrant workers in the legal system, Belgium had signed but not ratified the United Nations Convention on the Status of Migrant Workers, for reasons that had been made clear elsewhere, but were mainly due to employment conventions, Mr. Vandamme said. Belgium was fully aware that all laws on migrant protection would continue to evolve as a function of international recommendations, if only with regards to European Union evolution. The European Commission made regular submissions on this topic to the Council of Ministers, forcing it to regularly discuss migratory policy, either through procedural matters or through whether there should be a more or less selective and organised migration policy. The network of regulations and provisions that would be discussed would allow the European Union States to consider whether collective ratification of the United Nations Convention on Migrant Workers would contribute to the security of these workers. There was a link between access to national territory and integration, but migrant workers were given a whole range of services promoting their integration in terms of language, education, trade union membership, and private, collective and municipal services.
With regards to discrimination and the distribution of jurisdiction between Federal and regional bodies, there could be a further level of protection - the municipal and local bodies. Language, as any other criteria for discrimination, was provided for specifically in the Covenant and in other international or regional conventions, and all of this was taken into account on an equal footing by case law, courts, etc. There was major case law on language, Mr. Vandamme said, and legislation that was very clear with respect to the use of language in administrative and legal activities, in order to protect the three linguistic groups. Sexual orientation was a further criterion which was taken into account, and there had been recent laws which had created new rights for those of the same sex which wished to stabilise their relationship and enjoy greater benefits than they had enjoyed previously. On equality between men and women, the delegation said a gender-mainstreaming cell had been set up. A very ambitious and progressive law had been voted in in January 2007 in order to include the gender dimension in all federal policies, and this would be implemented as soon as the new Government was put in place, and would force the Government to set objectives in order to ensure equality between men and women. A network of gender-mainstreaming advisors would be set up in order to anchor and implement gender mainstreaming within all Federal policy areas. On the salary gap and the fight to reduce the latter, Belgium had prepared a report at the request of the Federal Government allowing to identify sources and causes for this gap, and now had reliable figures which it could update, allowing for an instrument which would allow Belgium to compare itself with the rest of the European Union.
With regards to Belgium’s attitude to an Optional Protocol to the Covenant, it was pleased with this development, Mr. Vandamme said, and had been involved in the preparatory work on the feasibility of the instrument. It had been aware of the anomaly if the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights did not have its own Optional Protocol allowing individuals or groups to submit individual complaints when other instruments did. There would be no reason not to have a complaints mechanism. Belgium was also aware of the enormous burden of work on the Committee and on the entire United Nations human rights system, and that these could not be multiplied ad infinitum. But this was balanced by the fact that a mechanism was needed for the rights governed by the Covenant, and all this seemed to indicate the need for consistency with the other existing mechanisms.
On Belgian cooperation development and whether the objective of 0.7 per cent of GDP was feasible, the delegation said the figures given did not show a continuous trend. With regards to the difficult issue of debt relief, the parallel report stated there would be no major debt operation beyond some 270 million Euros, which should be solved by 2008. In terms of commitments, the Government had supplemented the law on State accountability on a note of solidarity emphasising the importance of reaching a maintained annual growth calendar of 0.7 per cent of GDP for official development assistance, to be established as per the OECD criteria. Belgium had committed itself internationally to reaching the figure, and was very much determined to reach this objective. Belgium continued to have excellent relations with the populations and authorities of certain countries. Belgian cooperation for development was financed on the basis of a Federal organization, and was run through three main streams, at the Federal level, through NGOs and other organizations, and through multi-lateral or European programmes to which Belgium contributed. In general, all Government cooperation projects had to be screened for four trans-sectoral themes. Belgium tried to follow the Paris Declaration in this regard.
Questions by Experts
Taking up articles six to nine of the Covenant, Experts raised, among other things, recent figures for youth unemployment and how much success measures to combat it had been; whether there was any problem with forced labour and the economic exploitation of young workers, in particular au pairs; a request for information on serious accidents in the workplace as the report did not appear to contain any information on whether there was such a problem; what Belgium intended to do to eliminate the restrictions on the right to strike; why equal treatment in the payment of disability insurance was not always the case; what were the entitlements of asylum-seekers whose case had not yet been decided; what were the Government’s efforts to curtail unemployment among vulnerable groups such as women and the population of foreign origin; why Belgium had not ratified ILO Convention 160 on labour statistics and what were its future plans in this regard; issues related to fines related to anti-union discrimination; what the Government was doing with regards to its age-related fund and the expenditure that would be required to cover pensions and health costs in the future; and whether financial pressures on the budget would reduce the amount spent on social systems.
Response by Delegation
The establishment of a national human rights institution was under discussion in Belgium, and had been for some time, Mr. Vandamme said. There were, however, various other recourses. With respect to the Belgian position and the views of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on the scaling of salaries in terms of development cooperation, then Belgium wished to launch cooperation initiatives in HIV/AIDS prevention, and for the IMF this dimension of international aid had to be taken into account. In certain cases, Belgium should be able to get out of the dogmatic wage mass, and be able to look at positive actions that could possibly increase this wage mass. The benefits of globalisation were still distributed in an unequal way both between and within countries, and within the IMF and other fora Belgium did plead in favour of more generous aid, fairer trade, responsible policies and good governance. Every country should put forward its own plan for economic development, after consultations with the population in a participatory and inclusive way. Stable financial bodies, strong institutions, respect for law and good governance promoted sustainable investment and the creation of good jobs, all of which led to an increase in per capita production and a reduction in poverty. Over the past three years, Belgium had made considerable contributions to a number of programmes in various development fields, including education.
In future, if an Optional Protocol were adopted, the delegation said that in the framework of domestic recourse, applicants should have prosecuted their complaint at the domestic level. On the employment policy, youth employment was an issue of major concern, and Belgium was faced with a major problem. There were more recent figures in existence than those in the report, but it seemed that the trend was the same - and there was a basic problem for the entire territory, although this was felt more in Brussels and the South, and this was a lack of professional skills and qualifications of those coming out of secondary education. There was a need for a series of specific programmes - the problem was that there were training difficulties, also in the family context, and the fragmentation of different institutional responsibilities, Mr. Vandamme said. However, there was a European employment strategy, and the range of services offered to people in difficulty would be extended and followed-up. The Belgian economy was becoming more and more a service economy, a more and more specialised economy, and this made it ever more difficult to take on the young and inexperienced.
The informal economy in Belgium did exist, despite considerable efforts by the authorities with inspections, which had been stepped up and were working in a more coordinated manner, Mr. Vandamme said. It probably accounted to about 6 per cent of the economically active population, but there were no reliable figures. The European Union as a whole was working on means to combat this phenomenon, and urged States to address this concern in their job policy priorities. The situation of women in the labour market had incited policy-makers at the federal and regional level to work on this phenomenon, the delegation said, with various measures including training and other mechanisms which provided protection at the workplace for women and to prevent them from being dismissed too quickly. Women’s unemployment was to be dealt with in the context of the overall unemployment problem, as the Institution for Equality Between Men and Women did not like the idea that women be a target group, but that general measures should be implemented that targeted employment as a whole. On long-term unemployment, Belgian laws provided for payment over an indeterminate period of benefits, but this was combined with other criteria under the rules. In the context of incentive policies and work with international organizations, Belgium had developed the opportunities offered and created services aimed at checking that in long-term unemployment there was no long-term exclusion.
On social security, equal treatment and preservation of the rights of certain categories of persons, the delegation said because of the aging of the population, which had repercussions in the area of pensions and healthcare, various measures were being implemented, including to cover the retirement of those born in the 1960s, and to cover the needs for funding from 2010 to 2060. This fund had already been fed with some 15 billion Euros, which, despite being a considerable figure, was insufficient, and a number of other measures had been taken, including ones to encourage people to stay at work until the legal retirement age of 65. Diversification in the source of funding had been implemented, in order to be able to beef up resources by allocating tax revenue and real estate funds. To deal with the aging of the population, Belgium was encouraging people to stay at work, basically by reducing social security contributions, and allowing employers to benefit from this when they took on a certain type of worker. Belgium was signing social security conventions with many other countries, particularly on the subject of long-term benefits in order to ensure that the right to transmit such payments was ensured.
There was a difference between procedures for foreigners who had applied for asylum and foreigners who were in an illegal situation, the delegation said. Belgium did take account of the greater interests of the child and did respect the integrity of the family, and if a family was going to be sent away, then the children would never be separated from the mother or father; they were a family unit. Asylum seekers were entitled to material aid in centres, and there was a new asylum procedure, which shortened the time required for the process. Those who had not applied for asylum could only receive emergency medical aid. With regards to those illegally in the country, again, the situation of the child had priority. Care could be received at hosting centres. Applications were to be made from abroad for asylum - applications within the country were an exception in the process. The applicant whose application was receivable was given access to the labour market a year later.
With regards to work accidents, Belgian policy was very vigorous, and the directives had been upgraded in concert with the European Union and the social partners, particularly in the context of a consultative council which met regularly, the delegation said. Belgium also associated itself with international, European bodies such as the European Institute for Employment and Health. Those responsible for labour inspections and whose mission it was to prevent job accidents and protect health and safety were brought together. There were, however, serious accidents from time to time, as not everything could be avoided. Inspections were carried out, and lessons learnt from those incidents that did occur. The right to strike did exist, and a worker could not be fired for going on strike, the delegation said. With respect to the work contract, a labour contract could be unilaterally ended without compensation for a serious fault committed by the worker - and it was up to the courts to determine whether a fault was serious.
Abuse of domestic workers was considered to be a form of human trafficking, the delegation said, and there were laws which combated trafficking in human beings and forced labour and dealt with a range of different situations. Under pressure from the European Union and European Union employment strategy, Belgium provided as much statistical information as possible within the framework of its national Statistical Report, which was discussed, and the European Union took the statistics as means to assess the effectiveness of policies and the compliance of members with policies.
Questions by Experts
Taking up articles 10 to 12 of the Covenant, Experts raised, among other things, a suggestion that the drafting of the next report be more coordinated and a more structured methodology be applied, maybe with the involvement of a national human rights institution; how did the National Nutrition Plan deal with the problem of obesity; a request for further information on HIV/AIDS figures, a more detailed analysis on what was being done to combat the disease and what were the results in particular with regards to the feminisation of the disease; what was the percentage of people living below the poverty line; did the poverty reduction plan integrate economic, social and cultural rights; whether social assistance benefits were enough to ensure a decent standard of living and if not did the State party intend to increase them; issues related to social housing; issues related to the right to health of migrants and the need to have broader respect for economic, social and cultural rights; whether there was any draft law being considered to penalise corporal punishment of children; what specific protection was given to unaccompanied children when they were in a situation of irregularity; what the penalty was for the crime of domestic or conjugal violence, what sort of cases had been brought before the courts, and a request for statistics as to the real extent of the phenomenon; what were the difficulties, in particular in legal terms, to combat paedophilia, in particular on the Internet; and what measures existed to prevent juvenile and teenage abortion.
Response by Delegation
Responding to these questions and others, Mr. Vandamme said Belgium had to consider how to improve its organisation for the next report. The public authorities had machinery to measure and monitor implementation. Belgium would have to bear in mind the intended readers of the report, and should organise itself in such a way that it had a better and greater capacity to provide good reporting to international organizations. The regions shared the role in providing the right to health, which was a basic and fundamental right, and fell under the Federal Government. Preventive health was however a matter for communities. Most patients in Belgium were members of a mutual health society, the delegation said, and there were various networks which spared no efforts to spare their customers of all their rights and also to provide information campaigns on health risks and suitable preventive measures. There were no waiting lists in Belgian hospitals, except for access to certain specific operations, this showing that the system worked well. There was a lack of beds available for the elderly, and homes for the elderly were run either by social security systems or by private groups, which latter did have waiting lists. However, social aid homes must welcome persons, and there were large centres run by the social aid centres.
With respect to social aid, the delegation said that work was very broad. A certain amount was given to the individual, but there were a whole series of other measures that were taken on a case-by-case basis. Some services were available, for example, to aid the indebted in refloating and starting again. The amounts given to individuals followed the consumer price index and the sustainable development index. All aid was provided by the Public Social Action Centre, but was tailor-made to the person: for example, it could be the provision of food, a subsidy to purchase furniture or other causes, all targeted towards helping people get out of poverty. For the homeless, there was a measure to allow them to find decent housing; aid was provided to allow people to get off the streets. Children who were illegally in the country and could not get housing were given federal housing, and they could obtain education, among other rights. Belgium aimed to ensure that human dignity was respected, and this was the main goal of its social system.
The Belgian Government participated actively in European work on social exclusion and the fight against poverty within the framework of the Lisbon Socio-Economic Strategy, Mr. Vandamme said. With regards to other aspects of the right to housing, there were some waiting lists, as social housing needed to be financed, and the budget situation of the different town councils was not always of the best. However, best efforts had been made to improve social housing in the regions. The right could not be directly invoked, but there was social assistance, and an obligation to find at least a provisional answer to problems. There was no negative effect as a result of legislation to encourage access to property; municipalities were still very much concerned about this. On controls on prices and rents, it was true that the latter were relatively high, and this was partly due to real-estate speculation. Evictions were always covered by judiciary procedures.
Since 2006, there was an obligation to identify all cases related to domestic violence, the delegation said, and there was thus more reliable reporting. Sometimes there were failures in evaluation of acts and measures taken, but there was now an evaluation underway which would make it possible to have a clearer view of what points required improvement so that the new Government could review the Plan of Action and take account of the observations that had been made. With regards to the penal aspects, there had been a first body of legislation in 1997 in which aggravating circumstances were set out for offences under the penal code, including grievous bodily harm or murder, and when these were committed against a spouse or a long-term partner, then these penalties were increased. Family housing could be allocated to the victim of conjugal violence. On marital rape, rape was an offence, whether it was against a spouse or any other person.
With regards to child pornography, Belgium had faced this problem as had many other countries, and had spared no effort to combat this phenomenon, Mr. Vandamme said. Belgium had much more open reporting on such things than had been the case in the past, with an open and inquiring press. The penalties for sexual abuse of a minor depended on the age of the minor, the delegation said. There were heavier penalties if the criminal had authority over the child. The courts had extra-territorial competence over such crimes as trafficking in human beings and child prostitution, and there were different penalties depending on the age of the child. There could be specific prohibitions for those convicted of paedophilia and child prostitution, in particular with regards to certain political rights, and a judge could add other prohibitions, such as the need to keep away from schools. On child pornography, penal law penalised the creation, diffusion and possession of such material. The real images were penalised, even if only virtual. With regards to the Internet, local and federal police forces were the ones in charge of combating this, and there were various conventions in this regard, including with the Internet Service Providers.
Questions by Experts
Taking up articles 13 to 15 of the Covenant, Experts raised, among other things, issues related to equal opportunity of access to education, and to what extent was there a group of schools with very low standards with regards to quality of education; what measures were taken by the education administration concerning promotion of equal access to the same quality of education; whether there was positive discrimination in allocation of funds to schools that were avoided by parents from wealthy social groups; issues related to languages and teaching within the communes which were at the linguistic borders and whether pupils had a choice of school or language of education, or whether this corresponded to the preferences of the parents; whether there was a recognition of other ethno-cultural minorities; the need for a more focused approach to be played by the central Government on issues related to minorities; the need to take into account the intrinsic value of ethno-cultural minorities; which was the best-performing system of the three education systems that existed, and whether a Fleming could register in a Walloon school and vice versa; and whether the reform of higher education was in the direction of satisfying the requirement in the Covenant that higher education be made available to all on the basis of capacity and by the progressive introduction of free education.
Response by Delegation
Responding to these questions and others, the delegation said with regards to cooperation and development, this had evolved since the 1970s, and was now very different from what it had been then. The purpose today was to strengthen the State so that it and its partners were in a better position to provide services to the population. Development policy should be a policy that was genuinely appropriate, with ownership by the Government, the population, and the private sector, which should develop their own policies and programmes, and donor countries should align their cooperation with these development policies. There was a dialogue to see how things could be influenced and reoriented. Cooperation policy today was aimed at ensuring that partner countries had more financial resources to be able to implement their development policies, and that the institutions in those countries had greater capacities to do so. This was what capacity building was all about.
In 2003, there were 15,000 abortions in Belgium, and the average age of the patient was 27. It was not the youngest women who were having abortions - most of the women, 40 per cent, were between 20 and 30, the delegation said. With regards to HIV/AIDS, there were four times more men infected than women. However, the younger the group, the larger the proportion of women. There were information campaigns that were conducted at the level of the Federal entities and the national level, and there were a number of organizations that were either public or private which had mobilised and provided a variety of types of support to women in terms of sexual and reproductive health, and also pre- and post-natal support to protect mothers and children.
Corporal punishment was something that had been flagged for several years, and there were three legal texts lodged with Parliament on this, but they had not yet been examined. As things stood, there was still no text explicitly banning corporal punishment. There was some thinking underway in the Justice Ministry on this lacuna. Corporal punishment could be considered and therefore punished the same as bodily harm, but there was no specific crime and therefore no specific ban. On domestic violence, the delegation said it was not a crime per se, it was an aggravating factor in cases of murder and grievous bodily harm. When a person was sentenced, domestic violence could double the sentence.
With respect to the Roma community, Mr. Vandamme said this community had a very strong feeling of independence and its own organization, and when it went to any public service there was no reason for there to be discrimination against them, in that they were living in the same conditions as other nationals. There was non-discriminatory access for Roma to food banks. The Federal Ministry had broad jurisdiction to intervene on societal matters which could arise. There was a federal provision making a Flemish certificate equal to a French certificate. There was free mobility between the education systems, and the head of the family was entitled to choose the schools that the children would attend. A French-speaking child going to a Flemish school would be educated in Flemish. There were language classes available in the other languages of the country, but each school taught in a specific language. Children were mostly educated in the language of the commune in which they lived. Schools in border regions taught in the majority language of the region in which the commune was located. With regards to the comparison of the three systems, there was only one national standard, but in certain disciplines, one language system seemed to be stronger than the other.
For the moment the system of education was based on a law from 1940, which separated ordinary and special education. The current intention was to integrate those who were disabled or required special education into the ordinary school system, the delegation said. There were cooperation projects on education with a range of other countries including African, Eastern European and Asian countries. However, most of the cooperation took place at a federal level with UNICEF and UNESCO. Students did not have to pay during their student life – they sometimes paid an additional rate for photocopies, depending on the context. Scholarships were provided based on parental income and tax data, and were provided both for higher and secondary education. Students with scholarships were also exempt from paying university fees, which were about 500 Euros per year. On human rights teaching in schools, there were various initiatives, Mr. Vandamme said, particularly with regards to the rights of the child, ever since the existence of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. There were brochures available and the educational organizations dealt with the matter.
With regards to xenophobia, Mr. Vandamme said that education took place based on the principles of respect for others. All the universities in the country had specific courses on human rights, the delegation said, and it was possible to take these courses. Magistrates and judges had specific training courses in human rights, including on marital violence, xenophobia, and other current problems. Lawyers were also given training in order to remain up to date in sensitive areas. Information was given on specific aspects of human rights to the police, and in penitentiaries, for example on the prevention of torture, issues of cultural diversity, racism and xenophobia.
Belgium recognised three communities in the Constitution, Mr. Vandamme said, and based on that had no need to recognise minorities coming from other communities and who resided in the territory. With regards to the Roma and other foreign populations, they had the status they had in international law or European law. Refugees were refugees - there was a procedure for recognising and treating their requests for asylum. The Roma population were minorities with protection under national law, and were recognised. The Council of Europe had done a lot to draw attention to the Roma community and their rights. Communities had all the instruments for cultural life, and gave life to their possibilities depending on their abilities.
In response to a follow-up question on why there was no effort to integrate the school systems in order to integrate the language systems, Mr. Vandamme said there were programmes in universities that were in other languages than that of the region, including in English.
Concluding Remarks
FRANCOIS VANDAMME, Councillor General, Head of the Division of International Affairs at the Federal Department for Employment, Work, and Social Dialogue of Belgium, in concluding remarks, said Belgium was made up of entities which organised their cultural life locally. Belgium had chosen a Federal system, and this choice should be respected.
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ESC07016E