Committee on the Rights of the Child

List of issues in relation to the second periodic report of Saint Kitts and Nevis *

1.The State party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information, of 10,700 words maximum, by 25 November 2024. 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

2.Please provide an update on the measures taken or envisaged:

(a)To review national legislation, including the Marriage Act, the Child Justice Act, the Education Act and the Defence Force Act, and to bring both legislation and practice into full conformity with the Convention;

(b)To swiftly adopt the Social Protection Bill and to review the child protection and child justice legislation;

(c)To ensure effective coordination of all activities related to the implementation of the Convention across all sectors;

(d)To establish a tracking system for the allocation, use and monitoring of resources for children and to ensure a transparent and participatory budgeting process in which civil society, the public and children can participate.

3.Please provide an update on the measures taken or envisaged:

(a)To strengthen the systematic collection of disaggregated data on children and analysis thereof to facilitate data-based decision-making, particularly concerning children with disabilities, violence against children and social protection, and to improve public dissemination of all official data and statistics, including on census results;

(b)To set up an independent human rights mechanism to monitor the implementation of the Convention.

4.Please provide information on the measures taken:

(a)To eliminate, in law and in practice, all forms of discrimination, including discrimination based on sexual orientation and on disability;

(b)To ensure that the best interests of the child are consistently a primary consideration in all decision-making processes, particularly in judicial proceedings;

(c)To address barriers to birth registration and its digitalization, particularly in Nevis.

5.Please provide updated information on measures taken:

(a)To adopt legislation and measures prohibiting corporal punishment in all settings;

(b)To address the high incidence of domestic violence, gang violence and sexual exploitation and abuse of children and impunity for sexual and gender-based abuse, including incest;

(c)To prohibit all child marriage in law and in practice, without exception;

(d)To ensure child-friendly mechanisms for identifying, reporting, investigating and prosecuting cases of child sexual abuse, domestic and gang violence.

6.Please provide information on measures taken or envisaged:

(a)To protect children who are left behind as a result of their parent’s migration;

(b)To support and facilitate family-based care for children whenever possible and to strengthen the system of foster care for children;

(c)To ensure monitoring and regular review of the placements of children in institutions, particularly in Saint Kitts;

(d)To end the placement of children who have social protection needs in hospitals or in the New Horizons Rehabilitation Centre, which hosts children in conflict with the law.

7.Please provide information on the following:

(a)Accessibility and specialized support for children with disabilities within the mainstream education system;

(b)Measures for early and adequate identification of and support for children with disabilities within the health and the education systems;

(c)Access to and measures for inclusiveness of the social protection services and benefits for children with disabilities.

8.Please describe the measures taken:

(a)To expand the coverage of health services for children through public spending;

(b)To address the high incidence of early pregnancy, to decriminalize abortion and to ensure access to age-appropriate reproductive health services and education and easy access to contraceptives;

(c)To ensure that children have access to mental health services and counselling;

(d)To address substance abuse by adolescents.

9.Please update the Committee on the measures taken:

(a)To implement the new curriculum at the primary and secondary levels;

(b)To improve the retention rates, in particular of boys, at the secondary school level;

(c)To upgrade technical and vocational education and training and address the high drop-out rates from the Advanced Vocational Education Centre;

(d)To improve monitoring of early childhood standards and of access to early childhood education, especially for children from low-income households.

10.Please provide information on the measures taken to mainstream the needs of children, particularly children with disabilities and migrant children, into key disaster and emergency policies and measures.

11.Please provide information on the following:

(a)Measures taken to better integrate migrant children, particularly Spanish‑speaking children, into schools and communities;

(b)Progress on the legal and practical reform of the child justice system;

(c)Measures taken to reduce the length of court procedures involving children in the administration of child justice;

(d)The review of the minimum age of criminal responsibility for children;

(e)Measures taken to provide free legal aid to children on Nevis.

Part II

12.The Committee invites the State party to provide a brief update, of 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

13.Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and social sectors, 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 geographical allocation of those resources.

14.Please provide updated statistical data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, ethnic origin, national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on the following:

(a)Child marriages;

(b)Cases of violence against children, including abuse, neglect, domestic violence and sexual exploitation and abuse, that have been reported to the authorities, investigated and prosecuted, and include information on the sanctions imposed on the perpetrators;

(c)Children deprived of a family environment, including children who were left behind as a result of their parent’s migration and children who are living with extended family members, in institutions or in foster care;

(d)Children with disabilities, further disaggregated by type of disability, who are attending mainstream schools and who are out of school;

(e)Adolescent pregnancies;

(f)Substance abuse among children;

(g)Children living in poverty;

(h)Children in early childhood education, private and public;

(i)Children who are victims of trafficking, the number of investigations and prosecutions conducted into cases of trafficking in children, and information on the sentences handed down to perpetrators and the reparations afforded to the victims.

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

(a)Arrested;

(b)Referred to diversion programmes;

(c)Held in pretrial detention;

(d)Serving a sentence in detention, including information on the length of the sentence.

16.Please provide information on how a children’s rights-based approach is integrated into the planning, implementation and monitoring of measures for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals, including with regard to the participation of children and data collection, and on how those measures promote the realization of children’s rights under the Convention.

17.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.

18.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.