EMBARGOED UNTIL 08th of September 2008

 

Joint NGO Submission –  CHILD RIGHTS – 

UPR on FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY – February 2009

 

 

Submitted by: 

 

Aktion Courage, AFET – Federal Association of Child Rearing Support, Children’s Charity of Germany, European Master in Children’s Rights, Federal Association of Single Mothers and Fathers, Federal Association of Unaccompanied Minor Refugees, German Association for Children in Hospital, German Children’s Aid, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) e.V., Kindernothilfe, Naturfreundejugend Deutschland, Physicians in Social Responsibility (German Section), Pressure Group for Maintenance and Family Rights Inc., PRO ASYL, terre des hommes, Workinggroup Refugee Children within the Centres for Refugees and Torture Survivors in Germany/BAFF.

 

 

For further information, please contact:

 

Barbara Dünnweller, Kindernothilfe: barbara.duennweller@knh.de

 

 

1. We offer the following submission on the situation of child rights in the FEDERAL REPUBLIC of  GERMANY for consideration as part of the Universal Periodic Review in February 2009. The submission has particular regard to the government’s reservation to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). 

2. Germany is state party to the CRC (1992) the Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict (2004), and has signed the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (signed 2000).

 

I. Reservations to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

3. Germany ratified the UN-CRC on 6 March 1992, and submitted its first report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in 1994, the second one in 2003. The third and fourth report are now in preparation to be submitted as one single report in 2009. An NGO Coalition comprised of 100 organisations was set up in 1996 under the auspices of the German Child Welfare Organisation (AGJ), which since then has been monitoring the implementation of Germany’s obligations under the CRC. At the time that the German government ratified the Convention it also entered a reservation that we submit has facilitated the violation of the rights of one of the most vulnerable group of children: unaccompanied minor refugee children. The reservation reads:

“…none of the clauses contained therein may be interpreted as imposing any form of restriction on the right of the Federal Republic of Germany to enact laws or decrees dealing with foreigners entering the country or imposing conditions on their -rights of residence, nor on its ability to differentiate between German subjects and foreign nationals.”

II. Demands on German government

 

4. In 1995 and 2004 the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child voiced its concerns over the reservation, including its Concluding Observations of 26th of February 2004: “In light of the 1993 Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action, and in line with its previous recommendations (CRC/C/15/43, para. 22), the Committee recommends that the State party expedite the process for the withdrawal of the reservations and declarations it had made before the submission of its next periodic report and increase, in particular, its efforts to convince the Länder of the need to withdraw them”.

 

5. The German Parliament took a decision that the reservation should be withdrawn in 1999 and the petition committee of German Parliament renewed the demand to German government to withdraw the reservations in 2004. The child rights working group of the German NGO-Forum Human Rights has documented all decisions regarding the reservation on different political levels since 1991 (www.forum-menschenrechte.de/Publikationen). 

 

III. Government Arguments

 

6. The Government argues that ratification of the CRC was based on the ‘Lindauer Abkommen’, which allowed the Länder to voice their concerns on asylum issues related to the CRC. Some federal states were concerned that without the reservation Germany would be overwhelmed by large numbers of minors seeking asylum. The reservation was their condition for agreeing to the ratification of the UN-CRC in 1991. Such agreement is necessary under Germany’s federal system. The German government has repeatedly stated that it no longer believes the reservation is necessary, particularly after reform of the child’s law in 1998 (Kindschaftsrechtsreform) came into force, however it doesn’t want to act against the opinion of the Länder – although it has the legal power to do so. Nevertheless it has taken some initiatives to persuade the Länder to change their position. The most recent effort was undertaken by the Minister for interior affairs, Wolfgang Schäuble in a letter addressed to all governments of the 16 Länder in 2006 calling on them to support withdrawal of the reservation. On 13th of June 2008 the governments of Rheinland Pfalz, Bremen and Berlin applied to all federal states for withdrawal of the reservation in the Bundesrat (Drs 405/08), which was again refused (session 845 on 13.06.2008), because of lack of majority support.

IV. Effects on children

 

7. Since 1991 and as a result of this reservation there have been many cases where children whose asylum applications were rejected, were deported. Other examples of the practical effects of the reservation are provided for in the notes accompanying the oral statement on regulations affecting minors in the Federal Republic of Germany submitted by the International federation terre des hommes in 1995 (www.crin.org)