Committee on the Rights of the Child

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

The State party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information, of 10,700 words maximum, by 15 October 2023. 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

Please explain the measures taken or envisaged:

To evaluate the implementation of the child welfare programme and its action plan, which ended in 2018, and to adopt a comprehensive strategy on children’s rights that would guide the development of child rights programmes and projects;

To strengthen the Office of the Ombudsperson for Children’s Rights by providing it with sufficient human, technical and financial resources in order to guarantee the efficient monitoring of the implementation of the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto;

To strengthen the State Child Rights Protection and Adoption Service and to provide it with sufficient authority and adequate human, technical and financial resources for the effective coordination of children’s rights activities across all sectors and at the national, municipal and local levels;

To establish a system that enables the identification of specific ministries’ budget allocations to and expenditure on children, in particular those in marginalized and disadvantaged situations, so as to guarantee an objective assessment of the adequacy and effectiveness of public expenditure on children;

To ensure that the Social Protection Information System covers all areas under the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto, and that in addition to age, sex and rural or urban areas, the data are disaggregated by disability, nationality, ethnic origin, socioeconomic background and migration status, to be used for policy decisions;

To establish legal obligations for business enterprises and their subsidiaries that operate in or are managed from the State party to ensure that their operations are in line with the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto;

To establish a legal and institutional framework for the work of civil society to ensure that it operates independently in the field of the rights of the child.

Please explain the measures taken:

To enforce the anti-discrimination legislation in the State party and to implement urgent measures to prevent discrimination against children in marginalized and disadvantaged situations, including children with disabilities, Roma children, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex children, children living in poverty, children living in care institutions and children in conflict with the law;

To implement article 4 (1) of the Law on Fundamentals of Protection of the Rights of the Child, which provides for the principle of the best interests of the child and to ensure that the right of children to have their best interests taken as a primary consideration is integrated into, and consistently interpreted and applied in, all legislative, administrative and judicial proceedings and decisions;

To implement its legislation, in particular article 11 of the Law on Fundamentals of Protection of the Rights of the Child, and to promote and ensure respect for the views of children in all settings on all matters affecting them.

Please describe the measures taken:

To end the practice of anonymous abandonment of children and to strengthen and promote alternatives, as well as to increase efforts to study and address the root causes of the abandonment of infants;

To facilitate the acquisition of nationality by children born in the territory of the State party, who would otherwise be stateless or be at risk of statelessness;

To implement European Union regulation No. 2016/679 and the law on legal protection of personal data and to protect children’s privacy and safety in the digital environment, create accessible complaint processes and develop policies and mechanisms to protect children from violence, excessive screen use and online bullying, as well as to adopt any programmes to improve the digital literacy and skills of children, parents and teachers;

To strengthen measures to effectively protect children from access to inappropriate content, in particular adult content.

Please explain the measures taken:

To implement the prohibition of corporal punishment under the Law on Fundamentals of the Protection of the Rights of the Child within the family and the community, including by strengthening awareness-raising campaigns and parenting education programmes for parents and professionals working with and for children to promote attitudinal change;

To strengthen the child protection infrastructure at the local level to respond to all forms of violence against children, including abuse, neglect and domestic violence, by strengthening detection, mandatory and child-friendly reporting, investigation, protection and judicial interventions;

To increase the number of child-friendly and multisectoral child support centres (barnahus), in order to ensure that all children can access quality services, including forensic interviews, medical evaluation and therapeutic services for all victims and witnesses of sexual abuse and violence;

To raise awareness among children, parents and the public in order to ensure that cases of sexual exploitation and abuse of children are reported and to strengthen the capacity of professionals by increasing their number and providing training in conducting forensic interviews, medical evaluation, psychological therapy and social integration assistance for victims of sexual exploitation and abuse;

To address the online sexual exploitation and abuse of children.

Please provide information on the measures taken or envisaged:

To provide adequate support and orientation to families, with a view to preventing separation, including by implementing the basic family services package adopted in 2019, in particular with regard to families living in poverty, single parents, parents suffering from mental health problems, parents raising children with disabilities and parents who have children with special educational needs;

To strengthen and implement the deinstitutionalization strategy, paying particular attention to children with disabilities, and to ensure that there are sufficient alternative family- and community-based care options for children deprived of their family environment;

To ensure independent monitoring of alternative care settings, in particular residential care institutions, in a regular and systematic manner.

Please explain the measures taken or envisaged:

To implement the legal provisions on inclusive education by training teachers, providing schools with the necessary equipment and raising awareness among school staff, children and the general public of the rights of children with disabilities, especially those with intellectual and psychosocial disabilities;

To evaluate the implementation of the action plan for the inclusion of children in the learning process and diverse education for the period 2017–2022 and on that basis to elaborate and adopt a new action plan.

Please inform the Committee about the impact that the health strategy for the period 2014–2025 has had on the quality of health-care services provided under the national health insurance system for all children, including for migrant and asylum-seeking children, and on the increase in specialized paediatricians.

Please provide information on the measures taken:

To provide access to sexual and reproductive health services, including safe abortion;

To address tobacco, alcohol and drug use by children, including through rehabilitation services and awareness-raising activities;

To address children’s mental health and prevent adolescent suicide and to ensure that the necessary psychological and psychiatric services are available to children, including by providing an adequate number and quality of psychologists and equipping schools with multidisciplinary health professionals who can diagnose the early signs of mental health concerns;

To ensure that national legislation, policies and programmes address environmental protection, including climate change.

Please describe the measures taken to guarantee an adequate and sustainable standard of living for all children within the territory of the State party, with particular focus on children in the most marginalized and disadvantaged situations, such as Roma children and children of migrant workers, including migrant workers in an irregular situation, and to mitigate the socioeconomic impact of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and related measures on children and their families.

Please describe the measures taken:

To ensure that all children, including children belonging to minority groups, children living in rural areas, children of migrant workers in an irregular situation and asylum-seeking children, have access to free, compulsory and quality education;

To analyse the impact of the State party’s activities to integrate Roma children in mainstream schools, as provided in the annex to the State party’s combined fifth and sixth periodic report.

Please inform the Committee of the measures taken:

To end the detention of asylum-seeking children and families with children by amending its legislation, considering alternatives to detention and ensuring the timely provision of safe and dignified accommodation, support and services;

To align the age assessment procedure with the principle of presumption of minority and to ensure that age assessments are carried out only in cases where reasonable doubt exists concerning a child’s age;

To ensure that unaccompanied or separated children, including children without parental care and children evacuated from Ukrainian childcare institutions, fully benefit from the comprehensive child protection system and undergo individual assessments of their best interests.

Please inform the Committee about the efforts made:

To adopt laws establishing a child justice system, including child justice courts with specialized staff and a restorative justice approach;

To ensure that children in conflict with the law are provided with high-quality legal assistance delivered by public lawyers.

With reference to the Committee’s concluding observations on the State party’s combined third and fourth periodic reports and on the initial report on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and childpornography, please provide information on the implementation of the recommendations contained therein, in particular:

To ensure that all offences under the Optional Protocol are criminalized;

To reconsider the limitation periods for offences covered under the Optional Protocol;

To extend its universal jurisdiction to all offences covered under the Optional Protocol and abolish the requirement of double criminality;

To train its law enforcement officials and the judiciary to treat child victims of offences under the Optional Protocol as victims and amend its legislation in order to ensure that all child victims of offences under the Optional Protocol below the age of 18 years are not subject to any sanctions, including fines.

With reference to the Committee’s concluding observations on the State party’s initial report on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict, please describe the measures taken:

To develop systematic awareness-raising, education and training programmes on the provisions of the Optional Protocol, addressing all relevant groups working with children, in particular professionals working with asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children entering the State party from countries affected by armed conflict, including medical professionals, social workers, police officers, teachers, media representatives, lawyers and judges;

To identify at the earliest possible stage refugee, asylum-seeking and migrant children entering the State party who may have been recruited or used in hostilities abroad and to carefully assess the situation of these children and provide them with immediate culturally sensitive, child-centred and multidisciplinary assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social reintegration.

Part II

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 the following:

New bills or laws, and their respective regulations;

New institutions and their mandates or institutional reforms;

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

Recent ratifications of human rights instruments.

Part III

Data, statistics and other information

Please provide consolidated information for the past three years on the budget lines regarding children and the 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.

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

Premature death of children;

Cases of abuse of and violence perpetrated against children, including torture, inhuman and degrading treatment, all forms of corporal punishment, sexual abuse in 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;

Cases of adolescent pregnancy;

Stateless children;

Asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children;

Children living in poverty.

Please provide data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, socioeconomic background, ethnic origin, national origin and geographical location, regarding the situation of children deprived of a family environment, on the number of children who are or who have been:

Separated from their families, including data on the duration of the separation;

Placed in institutions, the number of institutions and data on children by institution;

Placed with foster families;

Available for adoption.

Please provide data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of disability, ethnic origin, national origin and geographical location, on the number of children with disabilities who are or who have been:

Living with their families;

Living in institutions;

Attending day care;

Attending preschool;

Attending primary schools;

Attending secondary schools;

Receiving individualized support;

Attending special schools;

Out of school;

Abandoned by their families.

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

Arrested;

Referred to diversion programmes;

Held in pretrial detention;

Detained with adults;

Convicted and are serving a sentence in detention, with data further disaggregated by the length of the sentence.

Please provide, if available, updated statistical data, for the past three years, disaggregated by age, sex, type of offence, ethnic origin, national origin, geographical location and socioeconomic status, on asylum-seeking, refugee and migrant children, including children who entered the State party from areas in which children may have been recruited or used in hostilities.

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 how those measures promote the realization of children’s rights under the Convention and the Optional Protocols thereto.

Please provide the Committee, in the combined fifth and sixth periodic reports, with an update of any data that may have become outdated by more recent data collected or other new developments.

25.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.