Committee on the Rights of the Child

Eighty-fifth session

11–29 May 2020

Item 4 of the provisional agenda

Consideration of reports of States parties

List of issues in relation to the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports of Czechia

The State party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information (10,700 words maximum), if possible before 14 February 2020. The Committee may take up all aspects of children’s rights set out in the Convention during the dialogue with the State party.

Part I

1.Please report on progress made in:

(a)Adopting a comprehensive strategy on children that encompasses all areas of the Convention;

(b)Strengthening coordination among the relevant authorities for the implementation of the Convention;

(c)Engaging the business sector on children’s rights;

(d)Establishing the role of child rights’ ombudsperson;

(e)Cooperating with civil society, including by establishing a legal and transparent system for allocating grants to civil society.

2.Please provide information on:

(a)Progress made in reviewing legislation to ensure that it is in line with the Convention, including on the child’s right to be heard, legal representation, social housing, and deinstitutionalization and alternative care;

(b)Efforts made to strengthen the training of judges, prosecutors, lawyers and police officers on the rights of children and child-friendly procedures;

(c)How children are protected against child and forced marriage, including abroad.

3.Please specify the efforts made to introduce a child rights approach to budgeting and any budget allocated for children in vulnerable and disadvantaged situations, including those listed in paragraph 21 (a) of CRC/C/CZE/CO/3-4, as well as migrant and Roma children. Please report on any efforts made to harmonize terminology and methodologies to allow data consolidation. Report also on progress made in establishing a centralized and modern system for collecting and analysing disaggregated data on all areas of the Convention, including on children victims of violence.

4.Please clarify how the best interests of the child are determined and applied in decision-making and particularly in immigration proceedings. Please clarify what the timelines are for adopting a national action plan against racism and hate crime and for prohibiting corporal punishment in all settings, including in the family. Please specify the outcome of and any follow-up plans to the national strategy for preventing violence against children (2008–2018).

5.Please specify the measures taken:

(a)To provide support services with the aim of preventing the abandonment of children and the removal of children from their families;

(b)To phase out institutionalization by adopting a concrete plan that includes the reallocation of financial resources and the reorganization of staff to support community-based options;

(c)To ensure the right to personal contact for the children of imprisoned parents;

(d)To end the “baby box” programme, address its causes and promote alternatives.

6.Please inform the Committee on efforts made:

(a)To encourage fathers to share in caring for very young children;

(b)To ensure that adoption procedures are aligned with the best interests of the child;

(c)To prohibit private adoptions;

(d)To encourage the domestic adoption of Roma children.

7.Please specify the measures taken:

(a)To prevent the institutionalization of children with disabilities, including by strengthening parenting support and foster care, and to support families so that children can remain with them;

(b)To develop a deinstitutionalization plan and ensure dignified living conditions and protection for children with disabilities in institutions;

(c)To strengthen the inclusion of children with disabilities in the mainstream education system;

(d)To ensure that children with disabilities have full and timely access to health care and related information.

8.Please specify how the prohibition on the sale of tobacco and alcohol to children is effectively enforced. Please report on the findings of the assessment of psychiatric hospitals carried out in 2018 in relation to the quality of care afforded to children and the rights of children. Please specify what concrete measures have been taken to prevent suicide among children and provide information on the impact of those measures on the prevalence of suicides.

9.Please specify the steps taken to address discrimination, poverty, inadequate health care, nutrition and safe drinking water, educational and housing segregation, school dropout rates and sexual exploitation affecting Roma children. Please specify the measures taken to prevent, assess and address housing poverty and residential segregation among children, and to establish a system of social housing. Please report on the progress made in the legal action against the establishment of housing benefit-free zones.

10.Please provide information on the implementation of the Committee’s previous recommendations relating to the establishment of a standardized educational syllabus and the development of a comprehensive childhood care policy (CRC/C/CZE/CO/3-4, para. 62 (c) and (e)). Please specify why preschool facilities for two-year-olds have been abolished. Please provide updated information on the status of the proposed changes to decree No. 27/2016 on the education of pupils with special needs and their implications for inclusive education.

11.Regarding migrant, refugee and asylum-seeking children, please specify the measures taken or planned: (a) to end detention and develop non-custodial solutions; (b) to ensure access to all levels of education, health care and insurance; and (c) to counter hate speech and negative stereotypes. Please specify the impact of the special language programme on the integration of such children into mainstream schools. Please specify how children are protected from statelessness regardless of their parents’ citizenship, residence and marital status.

12.Please specify the measures taken or planned:

(a)To ensure that deprivation of liberty is used as a measure of last resort and for the shortest time possible;

(b)To refrain from detaining children in conflict with the law together with adults and from placing them in institutions, including with other children in care;

(c)To ensure dignified living conditions to all children deprived of liberty, including those in social and mental health-care institutions;

(d)To ensure that children in conflict with the law enjoy at least the same level of legal guarantees associated with standard criminal proceedings.

13.Please provide detailed information on the measures taken to implement the Committee’s recommendations contained in its concluding observations on the State party’s report submitted under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict (CRC/C/OPAC/CZE/CO/1), in particular the recommendations on criminalizing the involvement of children in hostilities (para. 7), training professionals working with asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children (para. 11), providing resources and integrated services for such children (paras. 13 and 17–18), making complaints mechanisms available in military schools (para. 15) and abolishing the trade in small arms and light weapons with countries where children participate in hostilities (para. 19).

14.Please provide information about the measures taken to implement the Committee’s recommendations contained in its concluding observations on the State party’s report submitted under the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (CRC/C/OPSC/CZE/CO/1). Please specify the steps taken: (a) to protect vulnerable boys and girls from sexual exploitation and abuse, within the family, online, in prostitution and in travel and tourism; (b) to ensure the effectiveness of reporting mechanisms; (c) to redouble efforts to ensure that sexual offenders are prosecuted; and (d) to provide child victims with integrated services. Please clarify whether children involved in sexting are considered offenders.

Part II

15.The Committee invites the State party to provide a brief update (no more than three pages) on the information presented in its report with regard to:

(a)New bills or laws, and their respective regulations;

(b)New institutions (and their mandates) or institutional reforms;

(c)Recently introduced policies, programmes and action plans and their scope and financing;

(d)Recent ratifications of human rights instruments.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information, if available

16.Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and social sectors by indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and the gross national product. Please also provide information on the geographic allocation of those resources.

17.Please provide, if available, updated statistical data disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, geographic location and socioeconomic status, for the past three years, on:

(a)Cases of abuse and violence against children, including all forms of corporal punishment, child sexual abuse inside and outside the home, domestic violence, bullying and online sexual violence and abuse, as well as prosecutions and sentences handed down in the State party in such cases;

(b)Cases of child deaths due to accidents, abuse and suicide;

(c)Cases of children living with HIV;

(d)Cases of child marriage and adolescent pregnancies;

(e)Roma children;

(f)Stateless children;

(g)Asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children, including those in immigration detention centres, shelters and street situations;

(h)Children working in the informal sector and children in street situations;

(i)Children living in poverty and in inadequate housing.

18.Please provide data disaggregated by age, sex, socioeconomic background, ethnic origin, national origin and geographic location regarding the situation of children deprived of a family environment, for the past three years, on the number of children:

(a)Separated from their families, including the duration of the separation;

(b)Placed in institutions under all relevant ministries, as well as the number of institutions, and data on children in each institution disaggregated by age and sex;

(c)Placed with foster families, both in short- and long-term foster care;

(d)Available for adoption, including Roma children;

(e)Adopted domestically, through intercountry and private adoptions, including Roma children.

19.Please provide data, disaggregated by age, sex, type of disability, ethnic origin, national origin and geographic location, for the past three years, on the number of children with disabilities:

(a)Living with their families;

(b)Living in institutions;

(c)Attending regular primary schools;

(d)Attending regular secondary schools;

(e)Attending special schools;

(f)Out of school;

(g)Abandoned by their families.

20.Please provide, if available, updated statistical data disaggregated by age, sex, type of offence, ethnic origin, national origin, geographic location and socioeconomic status, for the past three years, on children in conflict with the law who have been:

(a)Arrested;

(b)Referred to diversion programmes;

(c)Placed in protective education, including in rehabilitation homes and other facilities run by the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports;

(d)In pretrial detention;

(e)Detained with adults;

(f)Placed in institutions together with other children in care who have not been in conflict with the law;

(g)Convicted and are serving a sentence in detention, and the length of the sentence.

21.Please provide information on how the planning, implementation and monitoring of measures for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals integrate a child rights-based approach, including with regard to child participation and data collection, and how they promote the realization of children’s rights under the Convention and its Optional Protocols.

22.Please provide the Committee with an update of any data in the report that may have become outdated by more recent data collected or other new developments.

23.In addition, the State party may list areas affecting children that it considers to be of priority with regard to the implementation of the Convention.