Committee on the Rights of the Child
Seventy-second session
17 May-3 June 2016
Item 4 of the provisional agenda
Consideration of reports of States parties
List of issues in relation to the combined third and fourth periodic reports of Suriname
The State party is requested to submit in writing additional, updated information, if possible before 1 March 2016 (10,700 words maximum).
The Committee may take up any aspect of children’s rights set out in the Convention during the dialogue with the State party.
Part I
In this section, the State party is requested to submit its responses to the following questions.
1.Please update the Committee on the current status of the review of the Civil Code and the draft amendment of the Marriage Act. Please also provide updated information on the draft bill Emergency Act for Child Care in Crisis.
2.Please provide information on the human, technical and financial resources allocated for the functioning of the Child Rights Bureau. Please indicate the existing mechanisms to coordinate the implementation of policies on children’s rights among the Government, and how those mechanisms ensure the participation of civil society organizations working on the rights of the child.
3.Please provide information about any assessment conducted on the implementation of the National Action Plan for Children (2009-2014) and indicate whether the State party has prepared a new National Action Plan.
4.Please provide updated information about the establishment of a Child Ombuds Bureau. Please inform the Committee about the available mechanisms to address complaints regarding violations of children’s rights and to provide redress for children, including the concrete outcomes of the Youth Police regarding complaints issued by children. Please also provide information on judicial decisions invoking the rights enshrined in the Convention.
5.With reference to paragraph 42 of the State party report, please provide information about the measures adopted for the effective implementation of a mechanism to follow up the child indicators monitoring system and to establish the obligation of different stakeholders to submit information to the system in the context of the “Raamwet Opvanginstellingen”(Law on Institutional Care, 2014).
6.Please provide information about the measures adopted to address the challenges on the identification of the budgetary allocation for the implementation of the Convention, considering the results and recommendations of the study referred to in paragraph 33 of the State party report.
7.Please provide information about strategies adopted to prevent the high number of child marriages in the State party.
8.Please provide information about the remedies available for children in all cases of violence in all settings. Please also provide updated information on the measures taken to facilitate and improve the reporting, investigation and conviction of perpetrators and redress for victims with adequate consideration of their age and sex. Please also report about the measures to prevent sexual violence and abuse of children, in particular girls, and the specific measures to protect children, including shelters, child-friendly counselling, and access to compensation.
9.Please elaborate on the information related to the application of the ministerial decision to prohibit corporal punishment in schools. Please also provide information about the sanctions applicable in cases of corporal punishment that occur in such settings as the family home, alternative care, school, early childhood care and places of detention. Please report about the measures to disseminate the information on the prohibition.
10.Please report on the scope of the legislation on care institutions approved by the National Assembly in 2014 and on the human, technical and financial resources to implement its provisions. Please indicate the measures that have been adopted to improve monitoring of child care institutions, and indicate the timeframes to assess the conditions in such institutions. Please provide information on whether the State party has put in place measures to disseminate legislation on care institutions in different indigenous languages and in child-friendly and accessible formats.
11.Please report on the measures aimed at the deinstitutionalization of children, in particular children under the age of 3 years and children with disabilities.
12.Please provide further information on the current legal and policy framework for child adoption and the outcomes of the revision of the Civil Code in that matter. Please indicate the measures that have been taken to prevent and investigate cases of child abduction and child trafficking for adoption and their outcome.
13.Please report on the measures to provide inclusive education and adequate social protection for children with disabilities, and on accessible services that allow children with disabilities to live inclusively in the community, in particular in rural areas.
14.Please provide information on the measures adopted to increase the rate of exclusive breastfeeding. In particular, please provide information on the progress achieved on the project to eliminate government subsidies for infant formula and on measures to reconcile breastfeeding and work commitments.
15.Please inform the Committee about the measures to provide access to sexual and reproductive health for children and adolescents. Please clarify how girls over 16 years of age can gain access to health care, including sexual and reproductive health care and services, and on the availability of modern contraceptive measures across the country.
16.Please provide information about the measures to prevent suicide among children and about mental health programmes to address that phenomenon.
17.Please provide information regarding the implementation of the Conditional Cash Transfer programme, especially with regard to children living in the interior, children with disabilities and children born to migrant parents. Please report on the existence of public databases to assess the needs and effective access to public services and the public policies to improve the socioeconomic situation of children living in remote areas, in particular indigenous children and children from the interior, who are considered “internal migrants”, in the light of paragraph 206 of the State party report.
18.Please provide information on the measures to enhance access to safe drinking water and adequate sanitation services in rural areas, such as Brokopondo and Sipaliwini, and to make public sanitation services affordable and accessible.
19.Please report on the measures adopted by the State party to address discrimination in education, and in particular those efforts to tackle drop-out rates among children living in the interior, to improve the quality of education in remote areas, to provide education in indigenous languages and in ways that are appropriate to the indigenous cultures and to ensure equal access to secondary and tertiary education for girls and boys. Please elaborate on the outcomes of the “Child-Friendly School project”.
20.Please inform the Committee about the measures taken to protect children born to migrant parents in terms of their rights under the Convention, including birth registration. Please indicate the extent to which social policies include protection of undocumented children.
21.Please provide information on how the National Strategy to Combat Human Trafficking (2014) provides for the prevention and protection of children against trafficking, and on existing rehabilitation programmes.
22.Please inform the Committee about the measures taken to ensure that private sector companies, in particular those that exploit natural resources, avoid child labour. Please also indicate the measures that have been taken in order to investigate violations of the rights of the child in connection with and/or as a consequence of the activities of public and private companies.
23.Please inform the Committee whether the juvenile courts have exclusive competence to deal with all children in conflict with the law and to train judges and other professionals in the juvenile justice system on children’s rights, with an emphasis on the provisions of the Act on Hearing Children in Judicial and Administrative Procedures (2008).
Part II
In this section, the Committee invites the State party to briefly (three pages maximum) update 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
1.Please provide consolidated budget information for the implementation of the National Development Plan 2011-2016 and the Health Sector Plan, 2011-2018 in areas related to the Convention, indicating the percentage of each budget line in terms of the total national budget and gross national product and geographic allocation.
2.Please provide data, disaggregated by age, sex, disability, socioeconomic status, national and ethnic origin, rural/urban place of residence and geographical location, for the past three years on:
(a)Infant mortality;
(b)Maternal mortality;
(c)Undernutrition;
(d)Children and adolescents living with or affected by HIV/AIDS, specifying cases of mother-to-child transmission;
(f)Vaccination coverage;
(g)Child and adolescent pregnancies;
(h)Child marriages;
(i)Child and adolescent suicides.
3.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, including as a punishment for a crime, and data on the prosecutions of perpetrators and the sentences handed down in the State party;
(b)Investigations into cases of sexual abuse of and violence against children, including by family members, and data on the prosecutions of perpetrators and penalties handed down, and the redress and compensation offered to victims;
(c)Children in detention facilities and penitentiary institutions;
(d)Stateless children or children born to migrant parents;
(e)Children living in prison with their mothers;
(f)Asylum seeking, refugee and migrant children and children who have been deported to their countries of origin.
4.Please provide data disaggregated by age, sex, socioeconomic background, national and ethnic origin and geographical location regarding the situation of children deprived of a family environment. Please indicate, for the past three years, the number of children:
(a)Separated from their parents;
(b)Living in child-headed households;
(c)Placed in institutions;
(d)Placed with foster families;
(e)Adopted domestically or through inter-country adoptions.
5.Please provide data, disaggregated by age, sex, type of disability, ethnic origin, national origin, and geographical location and socioeconomic status, 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)Not attending school;
(g)Abandoned by their families.
6.Please provide data, disaggregated inter alia by age, sex, socioeconomic background, geographical location and ethnic origin, for the past three years, on:
(a)The enrolment and completion rates, in percentages, of the relevant age groups in pre-primary schools, primary schools and secondary schools;
(b)The number and percentage of dropouts and repetitions;
(c)The teacher-pupil ratio.
7.Please provide the Committee with an update of any data in the report that may have been superseded by more recent data or that may have been affected by new developments.
8.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.