UNITED NATIONS

COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS

53rd SESSION

Geneva, 10 April 1997

Statement on behalf of the Transnational Radical Party

UNDER ITEM 21

Delivered by Beatrice LAROCHE

Mr. Chairman,

The Transnational Radical Party wishes to express concern about the situation of the child in Burma and China, both of which are party to the Convention on the Right of the Child, and to recommend the Commission a series of measures aiming at monitoring the situation of the child in those two countries.

In Burma, the SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) violates numerous rights of children and the spirit of the Convention. In 1995 and 1996, the Committee on the Rights of the Child took testimony from NGOs and SLORC. It found that Burmese laws were incompatible with the standards and principles of the Convention, especially with regards to the juvenile justice system.

The Committee also found that the Burmese army forcibly conscripts children as frontline soldiers. Such children experience extreme physical abuse at the hands of army officers. Forced child labour is pervasive. Children as young as 8 or 10 are often found on infrastructures projects, in some cases related to foreign investments, such as the TOTAL/UNOCAL pipeline construction.

Children's welfare and education has been declining rapidly under the SLORC regime. The SLORC spends less than 10% of the government budget on the social sector - education, health and welfare - instead putting its priority on military expanditures, which consume some 40% of the budget. In addition,UNICEF has documented serious problems of malnutrition ad high infant mortality rates. The situation of the child is of particular concern in the ethnic nationality groups in the border regions.

The Transnational Radical Party urges the Commission to call on the Burmese authorities to cooperate with the UN Thematic Procedures and allow the Special Rapporteur on Myanmar to carry out his visit and pay particular attention to the situation of the child, in particular in the areas of education, child labour and child involvement in armed conflicts.

The Transnational Radical Party is concerned that China's low level of spending on education severely impacts the quality and availability of basic education, and is thus a major reason why children do not attend school, drop out of school or end up in the labor force.In China most rural parents, and increasingly urban parents too, have to pay for their children's education, despite the Compulsory Education Law's stipulations that nine years of basic education should be provided to all children free of charge. Although the Chinese government claims that school fees are not charged for such education, more and more schools are demanding "miscellaneous fees" which amount to charging tuition in all but name. The National People's Congress has called repeatedly on the government to increase education spending. However, although the budget earmarked for education tripled from 1990 to 1995, it has decreased as a proportion of the GDP from 2.77 percent in 1993 to 2.46 percent in 1995, far below the 4.1 percent aver

age for developing countries. The problem of inadequate funding is particularly acute in the countryside, where there are an insufficient number of state run schools, which are supposed to provide free education. According to World Bank estimates, as compared to urban areas there is a higher drop out rate and poor attendance in rural areas. Teachers in rural areas generally earn less than 400 yuan a month, with unpaid salaries currently amounting to some 290 million yuan nationwide. Low wages and poor housing conditions cause teachers to leave rural areas, where they are most needed. Although the Chinese government claims a drop(c)out rate of 8.38 percent among children aged six to 14 in 1995, as many as 15 percent of births may be unregistered due to the population control policy.

The Transnational Radical Party is concerned that the number of children left outside the education system in China may be far greater than official figures suggest. Girls make up the majority of unregistered children, while several million migrant children may also be in this category. Without registration, children are not eligible for free education and may not be able to attend school unless their parents pay fees of several thousand yuan per year. While the Transnational Radical Party welcomes the measures devised by the Chinese authorities, such as soliciting funds for education from companies that employ migrant workers and collecting donations for schools under "Project Hope," the mere scale of the problem makes such measures insufficient.

The Transnational Radical Party calls on the Chinese government to allocate a larger share of its revenue to education, as part of a wider effort to bridge the gaps between impoverished and more well off regions. The organization urges the Chinese government to ensure that all children have access to education, regardless of whether their existence is legally registered.

The Transnational Radical Party is concerned that inadequate funding for education may be directly correlated to the increase in child labour. According to information based on official published sources, including numbers of children not in school and reports on child workers, in 1993 there were approximately five million children working in China. According to official reports that have reached the Transnational Radical Party, child workers make up as much as 20 percent of the work force in some township and village level enterprises. In particular, many migrant children are believed to be engaged in some kind of income earning activity.

The Transnational Radical Party is concerned that there may be serious deficiencies in the enforcement of labour laws and regulations of all kinds, including those relating to child labour and work safety. Many Chinese newspapers have carried reports about serious violations of regulations outlawing child labour, often uncovered as a result of official investigations. Enforcement officials may benefit from the profits of enterprises, take bribes, or believe that economic growth takes priority over protecting workers. Furthermore, labour unions subject to Party control cannot always raise concerns about abuses.

The Transnational Radical Party recommends that the Chinese authorities allow more transparency in the way monitoring of workplaces is carried out and reported, including cases in which employers have been punished for employing children. It further recommends that supervisory agencies be made more independent from other parts of the bureaucracy, and that special units be set up within them to monitor child labor.

The Transnational Radical Party calls on the Commission to adopt a resolution on the situation of human rights in China, including the rights of the child, at its 53rd session and to monitor the situation of human rights at its 54th session.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman