Parliamentary Assembly

Draft resolution

1Many legislative and policy measures have been taken by Council of Europe member States in recent decades to improve the well-being of children and their protection against any form of violence. Nevertheless, children continue to be harmed in many different contexts.

2The Parliamentary Assembly is particularly worried about a category of violation of the physical integrity of children, which supporters of the procedures tend to present as beneficial to the children themselves despite clear evidence to the contrary. This includes, amongst others, female genital mutilation, the circumcision of young boys for religious reasons, early childhood medical interventions in the case of intersexual children and the submission to or coercion of children into piercings, tattoos or plastic surgery.

3According to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), in all actions concerning children, comprising every person under 18, whether undertaken by public or private social welfare institutions, courts of law, administrative authorities or legislative bodies, the best interests of the child shall be a primary consideration and States are required to take “all appropriate ... measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse ... while in the care of parent(s), legal guardian(s) or any other person who has the care of the child” (Article 3).

4The Council of Europe has been actively promoting children's rights and child protection since 2006 through its Strategy for the Rights of the Child, and in which “Eliminating all forms of violence against children” can be found as one of four strategic objectives.

5The Assembly itself has adopted numerous texts drawing attention to various forms of violence inflicted upon children in bad faith (sexual violence in different contexts, violence in schools, domestic violence, etc.). It continues to fight against different forms of violence inflicted upon children via different promotional activities and campaigns (domestic violence, sexual violence). However, it has never looked into the category of non- medically justified violations of children’s physical integrity which may have a long-lasting impact on their lives.

6The Assembly strongly recommends that member States promote further awareness in their societies of the potential risks that some of the above mentioned procedures may have on children's physical and mental health, and take legislative and policy measures that help reinforce child protection in this context.

7The Assembly therefore calls on member States to:

7.1examine the prevalence of different categories of non-medically justified operations and interventions impacting on the physical integrity of children in their respective countries, as well as the specific practices related to them, and to carefully consider them in light of the best interests of the child in order to define specific lines of action for each of them;

7.2initiate focused awareness-raising measures for each of these categories of violation of the physical integrity of children, to be carried out in the specific contexts where information may best be conveyed to families, such as the medical sector (hospitals and individual practitioners), schools, religious communities or service providers;

7.3provide specific training, including on risks of and alternatives to certain procedures, as well as the medical reasons and minimum sanitary conditions that should be fulfilled when performing them, to various professionals involved, in particular medical and educational staff, but also, on a voluntary basis, religious representatives;

7.4initiate a public debate, including intercultural and interreligious dialogue, aimed at reaching a large consensus on where the limits with regard to violations of the physical integrity of children are to be drawn according to human rights standards, and at striking a balance between the rights and the best interest of the child and the rights and religious freedoms of parents and families;

7.5take the following measures with regard to specific categories of violation of children’s physical integrity:

7.5.1publicly condemn the most harmful practices, such as female genital mutilation, and pass legislation banning these, thus providing public authorities with the mechanisms to prevent and effectively fight these practices, including through the application of extraterritorial “legislation or other measures to establish jurisdiction” for cases where nationals are submitted to female genital mutilation abroad, as specified in Article 44 of the Council of Europe Convention on Preventing and Combating Violence against Women and Domestic Violence (CETS No. 210);

7.5.2clearly define the medical, sanitary and other conditions to be ensured for practices which are today widely carried out in certain religious communities, such as the non-medically justified circumcision of young boys;

7.5.3undertake further research into rare phenomena such as intersexuality or DSD (differences of sexual development) to ensure that all children concerned may benefit from operations according to the highest medical and ethical standards and the current state of the medical art, and be submitted to them at an age appropriate for their specific DSD symptoms;

7.6promote an interdisciplinary dialogue between representatives of various professional backgrounds, including medical doctors and religious representatives, so as to overcome some of the prevailing traditional methods which do not take into consideration the best interest of the child and the latest state of medical art;

7.7raise awareness about the need to ensure the participation of children in decisions concerning their physical integrity wherever appropriate and possible, and to adopt specific legal provisions to ensure that certain operations and practices will not be carried out before a child is old enough to be consulted.

Draft recommendation

1The Parliamentary Assembly welcomes the ambitious work undertaken by the Council of Europe in favour of children’s human rights, which has always followed a comprehensive approach including child protection, the promotion of children’s development and child participation as the main pillars of effective child rights strategies.

2The Assembly welcomes, in particular, the fact that the Council of Europe’s Strategy for the Rights of the Child already focuses on eliminating all forms of violence against children amongst its strategic objectives, and strongly encourages the Committee of Ministers to allow this work to continue along the same lines beyond 2015.

3The Assembly points out, however, that a certain category of human rights violations against children is not yet explicitly covered by any international or European policy or legal instrument: the medically unjustified violations of children’s physical integrity as specified in Assembly Resolution … (2013) on “Children’s right to physical integrity”.

4With the purpose of reinforcing the protection of children’s rights and well-being at the European level, the Assembly invites the Committee of Ministers to:

4.1fully take into account the issue of children’s right to physical integrity when preparing and adopting its new Strategy for the Rights of the Child as of 2015, in particular as regards the fight against all forms of violence against children and the promotion of child participation in decisions concerning them;

4.2consider the explicit inclusion of children's right to physical integrity, as well as their right to participate in any decision concerning them, into relevant Council of Europe standards and, to this end, to examine in a comprehensive manner in which Council of Europe instruments such rights should be included.