COMMITTEE EXAMINES REPORTS OF COSTA RICA ON OPTIONAL PROTOCOLS TO CONVENTION ON RIGHTS OF CHILD
The Committee on the Rights of the Child today reviewed the initial reports of Costa Rica on how that country is implementing the provisions of the two Optional Protocols to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Introducing the report on the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, Mario Víquez Jiménez, Executive President of the National Child Welfare Agency of Costa Rica, noted that Costa Rica had no standing army and that Costa Rican children had never known war. Last December, an educational campaign had been launched to discourage the giving of war-type toys as presents, and to raise awareness about the importance of eliminating violent content for toys. In Costa Rica, Mr. Víquez stressed, the Government had made a conscious decision to spend not on war, but on education.
Committee Chairperson Jacob Egbert Doek, who acted as Rapporteur for the report of Costa Rica on children and armed conflict, said Costa Rica had ratified a substantial number of human rights treaties, and held a good record of implementation. He welcomed the fact that Costa Rica did not have an army, and said it would be a good thing if more countries followed that example. That said, it was still important for countries without an army to join the Optional Protocol. It was important to create a body of States that took really serious measures to prevent children from being involved in armed conflicts.
Presenting the report on the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, Mr. Víquez said that, in the 1990s, Costa Rica had positioned itself to promote its tourism sector and now enjoyed a global reputation for its innovation in sustainable tourism. Unfortunately, it had also gained a reputation as an exotic destination with a tolerant culture regarding sexual tourism. To respond to that reality, in 1996, the National Child Welfare Agency had publicly condemned the situation, and had directed the formation of a National Commission to Combat the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents.
Committee Expert Kamel Filali, who served as country Rapporteur for the report of Costa Rica on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, said in preliminary remarks that the delegation had demonstrated that there was a will to move forward on this issue – it was palpable. There were many projects and ideas coming forward to resolve the problem, also with regard to new challenges, such as cyber crime. He was reassured to see that Costa Rica was on the right path in terms of the ability to detect where the problems lay, and in finding solutions, including through bringing civil society into that process.
The Committee will release its formal, written concluding observations and recommendations on the initial reports of Costa Rica on the Optional Protocols towards the end of its three-week session, which will conclude on 2 February.
Also representing the delegation of Costa Rica were other members from the National Child Welfare Agency and from the Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations Office at Geneva.
When the Committee reconvenes on Tuesday, 16 January, at 10 a.m., it will consider the second periodic report of Kenya (CRC/C/KEN/2).
Reports of Costa Rica
The initial report of Costa Rica on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (CRC/C/OPAC/CRI/1) states that persons who have not attained their legal majority (18 years) are protected by national law, which prohibits both voluntary and compulsory enlistment. It further notes that Costa Rica does not have any armed forces. In practice, Costa Rica has been a neutral State since its independence, and the Legislative Assembly is currently considering a bill to have the Declaration of Neutrality – the legacy of a long historic tradition, which is currently embodied in a decree – also reflected in a law. The process of recruiting law enforcement personnel is completely civilian in nature, and the minimum age for joining any of the police forces is 18. There are no military schools in Costa Rica and the law enforcement personnel are trained in civilian training centres. There are also no armed groups operating on the margins of the law, nor are there any conflicts or hostilities.
The initial report of Costa Rica on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (CRC/C/OPAC/CRI/1) says that the National Commission to Combat the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents is responsible for implementing systematic and sustained measures to address commercial sexual exploitation of children and young persons in Costa Rica. The Commission and the National Child Welfare Agency have launched large-scale campaigns to raise public awareness of the consequences of commercial sexual exploitation and to publicize the pertinent legislation. Measures have been taken to give parents greater control over their children’s access to the Internet, and the authorities have taken steps to regulate the presence of children in public places with Internet access, such as Internet cafes and video game arcades. Strict controls have been introduced in the tourist sector and partnerships have been established with hotel owners, networks of taxi drivers and other stakeholders. However, the practice of purchasing sexual services from minors is widespread and enjoys tacit social acceptance, as shown in a recent study on adult men’s views of sexuality and their relations with minors. Given the above, the authorities have decided to change their approach, to ensure that awareness campaigns stress that engaging in such acts constitutes an offence and is liable to severe punishment. There is also a need to use more explicit language.
Presentation of Report on Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict
ALEXANDRA SEGURA, Minister, Permanent Mission of Costa Rica to the United Nations Office at Geneva, noted that Costa Rica was committed to implementing the rights of the child. By way of introducing the delegation, she noted that Mr. Víquez was the highest official on child rights in Costa Rica.
MARIO VIQUEZ JIMENEZ, Executive President of the National Child Welfare Agency, introducing the report on the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, said that Costa Rica had no standing army and that Costa Rican children had never known war. In Costa Rica a national strategy of neutrality had been developed from its earliest history. In 1880, the Government of President Tomás Guardia had explicitly incorporated several provisions on neutrality in the Criminal Code. In 1924, the Government of Julio Acosta García had reaffirmed the rules on neutrality in the Criminal Code of the same year. In 1983, President Luis Alberto Monge had declared that Costa Rica maintained active, perpetual and unarmed neutrality.
Last December, Mr. Víquez recalled, an education campaign had been launched in Costa Rica to discourage the giving of war-type toys as presents, and to raise awareness about the importance of eliminating violent content for toys. A programme “Avancemos” created subsidies for youth and children to increase universal education up to the age of 17 and had, for the first time, increased the budget for education to 6 per cent of gross domestic product. They were going even further, and were working towards a Constitutional reform to require that 8 per cent of GDP be allocated for education. In Costa Rica, the Government had made a conscious decision to spend not on war, but on education. Costa Rica had chosen the path of life, school dialogue and tolerance.
Discussion on the Report on the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict
JACOB EGBERT DOEK, Committee Chairperson who acted as Rapporteur for the Report of Costa Rica in the Absence of the Country Rapporteur, said Costa Rica had ratified a substantial number of human rights treaties, and held a good record of implementation. He welcomed the fact that Costa Rica did not have an army, and said it would be a good thing if more countries followed that example. That said, it was still important for countries without an army to join the Optional Protocol. It was important to create a body of States that took really serious measures to prevent children from being involved in armed conflicts.
Mr. Doek said that the Committee would like to see the criminalization of all activities for the recruitment of children, which would allow for the prosecution of all persons responsible for such crimes. Specifically, he wanted to know if the recruitment of children under 18 was a crime in Costa Rica, under what provision, and what did they consider to be their jurisdiction in that regard, in particular with regard to nationality and the place where the crime was committed.
Other experts asked what Costa Rica was doing to disseminate the Protocol; how the report was written, and in consultation with what bodies; what measures had been taken to allow the Protocol to be applied both within the country and in terms of acts taking place outside of it; and what awareness-raising measures had been taken to draw attention to the Protocol and to teach its precepts.
Response by Delegation
MARIO VIQUEZ JIMENEZ, Executive President of the National Child Welfare Agency of Costa Rica, responding to Experts’ questions, said that first of all, all international human rights instruments that had been ratified by Costa Rica superseded domestic legislation. Secondly, under article 7 of the Penal Code, the delegation was of the opinion that the recruitment of children under 18 would constitute a crime, whether recruitment took place within the country, or outside of it. With regard to extraterritoriality, crimes perpetrated against a Costa Rican national outside the national territory could be pursued in Costa Rican courts, he confirmed.
It should also be recalled, Mr. Víquez said, that for crimes against humanity and war crimes, recourse could be had to the International Criminal Court.
On small arms, there were laws regulating the sale of such arms, including a psychological test. He recalled that Costa Rica was pushing for an international protocol on small arms and light weapons. The Arias Peace Foundation had also spoken about the need to eliminate the use of small arms in the country. However, the delegation observed that it was a process, and the debate in the country was just beginning.
There was no specific programme to disseminate the Optional Protocol, Mr. Víquez said. However, peace studies were of paramount importance in school curricula.
Presentation of Report on the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography
MARIO VIQUEZ JIMENEZ, Executive President of the National Child Welfare Agency of Costa Rica, presenting the report on the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, said that in Costa Rica the term child prostitution was not used. The term used was “commercial sexual exploitation involving minors”. Ten years ago, Costa Rica had been confronted with a problem that had been hidden, the commercial sexual exploitation of children. At that time, they had lacked the proper legal and administrative tools to deal with that issue and a clear conceptual position on the subject. Since then, social transformation and the entry into force of the Convention on the Rights of the Child had given a framework for dealing with such questions.
During those same years, Costa Rica had positioned itself to promote its tourism sector and it now enjoyed a global reputation for its innovation in sustainable tourism. Unfortunately, it had also gained a reputation as an exotic destination with a tolerant culture regarding sexual tourism. To respond to that reality, in 1996, the National Child Welfare Agency, a constitutional institution, publicly condemned the situation and directed the formation of a National Commission to Combat the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents. The Commission immediately undertook an assessment of the situation and elaborated a national prevention plan. Since 1996, efforts to combat such crimes had been defined in the National Plan to Combat Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents, with three principal areas of focus: prevention; judicial reform and prosecution; and assistance to victims.
On prevention, between 2003 and 2006, four national campaigns a year had been carried out by all possible means throughout the country, Mr. Víquez noted. There was written information available in hotels and airports warning about this offence and the criminal penalties attached to it. There were 400 annual police patrols aimed at detecting victims. And some 10,376 people had been trained in various workshops. A programme called “Child Safety on the Internet” had been launched in 2003 to combat sexual violence, in particular child pornography, by means of the Internet.
Specifically regarding sexual tourism, there was a draft “Code of Conduct for the Protection of Children and Adolescents against Commercial Sexual Exploitation”. The goal was to have companies in the tourism sector sign the code and then to display signs showing that their businesses adhered to those principles.
In terms of judicial reform and legal action, the most important event was the reform of the Penal Code in 1999, Mr. Víquez observed. The new law completely revolutionized the old sexist and discriminatory provisions and defined commercial sexual exploitation and creation and dissemination of pornography, among others. In addition, an executive decree regulated Internet cafés to protect minors from injurious content.
In terms of prosecution, since 1999, of the 65 individuals that have been prosecuted for the crime of “paid sexual services”, 35 had been convicted.
With regard to assistance to victims, the National Child Welfare Agency had helped approximately 350 victims a year (356 in 2004, 315 in 2005). In conjunction with the University of Costa Rica, the Agency had also developed a new model for interviewing victims, and had established a training programme for those involved in the process.
In December 2005, the Coalition against Illicit Trafficking in Migrants and Human Trafficking had been formed, which has itself established regional offices for the repatriation of victims of trafficking; a protocol on inter-institutional coordination for the repatriation of trafficked children; and a protocol of the National Child Welfare Agency focusing on minors victims of trafficking.
Since 2000, some 65 cases of child pornography had been brought against disseminators of such material, and 21 producers of child pornography had been prosecuted.
Discussion on the Report on the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography
KAMEL FILALI, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the Report of Costa Rica on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, drew attention to Costa Rica’s good record regarding its wide ratification of human rights treaties, as well as efforts undertaken for their implementation. Costa Rica had also demonstrated that it was ready to address new challenges in this area, as was posed, for example, by cyber crime. In that connection, he drew attention to the fact that, since 2002, the National Child Welfare Agency, acting as its secretariat, had given the National Commission to Combat the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents the means to operate more effectively.
The substitution of “commercial sexual exploitation” for the term “prostitution” was problematic. In effect, the word “commercial” could have the connotation that the act in question was consensual, given that it was remunerated. Furthermore, it appeared to him that Costa Rica was too greatly focused on the judicial and prosecutorial aspect of sexual exploitation, at the expense of prevention, and in particular the rendering of assistance to victims. What was being done to prevent children from becoming victims again, and to give better protection to victims, Mr. Filali wondered.
Mr. Filali said he would like to have more details on the issue of possession of pornographic materials, and the 2005 draft law addressing it.
Finally, on the issue of jurisdiction, Mr. Filali wondered what action could be taken against a Costa Rican national abusing a minor abroad. As far as he knew, Costa Rica had very few extradition treaties with other countries.
An Expert was concerned that Costa Rica had not demonstrated that it had criminalized all the acts covered by the Optional Protocol, such as the exploitation of children for the sale of their organs, forced labour, or possession of pornographic material. An Expert added that, in general, she was dissatisfied that the report was too focused on the issue of sexual exploitation altogether. What about the issues of the sale of children, including the sale of organs, or sale for adoption? Also, were child prostitution and child pornography covered by the Children’s Code, she asked?
An Expert asked how the three administrative bodies for child protection – the National Commission to Combat the Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents; the National Council on Children and Adolescents; and the National Child Welfare Agency – were linked and how their activities were coordinated?
Other Experts then raised questions and asked for further information on a number of topics, including statistics on international adoptions; what prevention strategies existed; whether there was any information on which categories of children were susceptible to such crimes; details on involvement of parents or families in such exploitation; school involvement in raising awareness on the topic; lack of implementation of the executive order regulating the access of minors to Internet cafes; a lack of law enforcement specialists to deal with such crimes; the difficulty of prosecuting cases, in particular, involving Costa Rican girls trafficked to Mexico for prostitution; and whether child witnesses were required to testify in public, and what other protections existed for child witnesses.
Response by Delegation
MARIO VIQUEZ JIMENEZ, Executive President of the National Child Welfare Agency of Costa Rica, responding to a query on the terminology, said that Costa Rica had chosen to follow the usage of the World Congress in Stockholm (2001) and Yokohama (2004), in using the term “commercial sexual exploitation” for the offences of pornography, trafficking and prostitution. For Costa Rica, prostitution had a connotation of consent. As minors could not consent to prostitution, and they were not in an equal relationship with the perpetrators, the authorities had chosen to use this other term.
Mr. Víquez observed that there had been a shift in terms of the mandates of the child protection bodies. The National Child Welfare Agency had taken over responsibility with regard to developing policies on child sexual exploitation, for example. The Agency’s mandate was the special protection for children, and it also had special judicial powers in administrative matters. There were no large institutions to care for children not in the care of their parents, but rather they were placed with foster families. The Agency also regulated those relations.
On the subject of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), the Agency had been working to integrate their efforts with the Agency. For example, they had been working with more than 100 NGOs to create a national system of protection that would be 50 per cent NGO and 50 per cent Agency led.
On training of public officials, the Culture and Rights Centre for Childhood and Adolescence was devoted to human rights teaching for children and for public staff, Mr. Víquez recalled. From September to November 2006, more than 300 activities were carried out and four to five thousand public officials were trained, including police officers, teachers and other officials.
Turning to legal prohibitions on pornography, the Penal Code criminalized manufacturing and dissemination of child pornography. Possession had been included in the original draft, and it had not been approved. The crime of possession had therefore been removed from that law, Mr. Víquez explained. However, a new draft law on possession was currently being discussed by the Constitutional Court.
Public awareness campaigns had been launched to encourage people to report crimes, Mr. Víquez pointed out. The Code on Children and Adolescents specifically provided for beneficial conditions for those who reported, including immunity. Teachers or anyone involved in working with children were specifically required to report, with penalties for failure to do so. Reasonable suspicion was the threshold required, and anyone who reported such a case with reasonable suspicion was protected from prosecution.
Mr. Víquez said that revictimization was a source of great concern. Working with non-governmental organizations and universities they had been addressing this issue. The most interesting of the procedural measures developed in this vein had been guidelines for the Supreme Court to prevent revictimization of minors in criminal matters, which had been adopted. A bill was also currently being brought to give those guidelines the force of law.
It was true that the report focused too much on commercial sexual exploitation. The reason, Mr. Víquez said, was that it was a pressing problem. There had been no reported cases of sale of children’s organs or sale for adoption.
The issue of adoption, however, was a cause for concern, Mr. Víquez added. Since 2002, a law had been in place, which changed the adoption provisions of the present family code to tighten the regulations. However, that law was currently facing a constitutional challenge and had not been applied as yet.
Violence against children was a priority for the National Child Welfare Agency, which had adopted a campaign against it on three particular fronts: the issue of corporal punishment; violence in the mass media and in particular that involved in video games; and changing ideas about fatherhood and the ways in which fathers should and could relate to their children.
Regarding trafficked children, Costa Rica had protocols and regional agreements in place. Mr. Víquez stressed that all children present in the territory were covered by social security in Costa Rica, regardless of their nationality or where they came from, and no child would be returned to a situation of armed conflict. One example involved a clear case of trafficking for the purposes of adoption of 12 Guatemalan children. In that case, return was effected with all safety guarantees, including DNA tests to establish the families to which the children belonged. In one case, however, the child had still not been returned because the Costa Rican Government had not received satisfactory safety assurances.
Yes, Mr. Víquez affirmed, they did have indicators for children at risk for sexual exploitation. Poverty was the greatest one. Not just poverty per se, but in particular where it was coupled with lack of education and access to cultural assets, thus creating marginalization and disenfranchisement. It was for that reason that the Government had been putting such a great emphasis on education, as evidenced by the “Avancemos” programme he had mentioned earlier.
In the school system there was a whole series of campaigns aimed at providing information to children on exploitation and familiarizing children with the issue of abuse, so that they could fight against it. There was a problem with regard to sexual education, and it was hoped that courses to teach about human sexuality and to provide information on such subjects as HIV/AIDS would be incorporated in the near future.
Preliminary Concluding Observations
KAMEL FILALI, Committee Expert who served as Country Rapporteur for the Report of Costa Rica on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, thanked the delegation for the constructive, frank and direct dialogue, which had allowed members to get a better grip on the real situation in Costa Rica with regard to the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
Mr. Filali observed that the delegation had demonstrated that there was a will to move forward on this issue – it was palpable. There were many projects and ideas coming forward to resolve the problem, also with regard to new challenges, such as cyber crime. He was reassured to see that Costa Rica was on the right path in terms of the ability to detect where the problems lay, and in finding solutions, including through bringing civil society into that process.
Concerns remained on Costa Rica’s perseverance in implementation of the Optional Protocol and in disseminating the provisions of the Protocol to the public, including by training of specialized staff tasked with implementing the Protocol. Another concern was one of coordination and the need to define the role of the players in addressing this issue, Mr. Filali said.
For use of the information media; not an official record
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