At the 7th Workshop on the ASEAN Regional Mechanism on Human Rights (held in Singapore 12-13 June 2008), Ms Braema Mathi of MARUAH spoke on issues faced by migrants workers in ASEAN. We enclose a PDF of her presentation.

MARUAH recently made a submission to the Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports (MCYS), as part of a public consultation on the draft report on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

Having ratified the CRC in 1995, Singapore is obliged to submit a report every 5 years to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.

See here for a previous post on this issue.

Below is our submission.

Comments on Singapore’s Draft Periodic Report on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

MARUAH welcomes the Government’s attempts in engaging with Singaporeans’ views in its Periodic Report to be submitted to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child. We have been heartened by the response of Singaporeans on this document even though their opinions were articulated in a private context (closed-door event). We look forward to public dialogues between the people and the Government in future forums.

MARUAH notes that the CRC, together with the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), is a core human rights treaty that all ASEAN states have acceded to, or ratified. We therefore believe that it is important for Singapore to be a leader within the ASEAN family in upholding the values and obligations of the CRC. Accordingly, MARUAH, as a group focusing on the establishment of the ASEAN human rights body, is glad for this opportunity to be of assistance in the ongoing process of human rights development in Singapore and by extension ASEAN.

MARUAH makes the following comments:

General measures of implementation

1. Declarations and reservations
1.a. MARUAH highlights one of the Government’s reservation on compulsory education
“(6) With respect to article 28.1(a), the Republic of Singapore – (a) does not consider itself bound by the requirement to make primary education compulsory because such a measure is unnecessary in our social context where in practice virtually all children attend primary school;”
1.b. MARUAH calls for the above reservation to be removed in light of the implementation of the Compulsory Education Act in Singapore

2. Dissemination
2.a. Too few know about the CRC, especially children
2.b. MARUAH calls for the CRC to be included in the school syllabus
2.c. MARUAH is also concerned that the draft report was only disseminated in early July 2008, with only 1 month for public consultation
2.d. MARUAH understands that the forum held on 2nd July to discuss the draft report was a closed-door event (as reported by TODAY), and not a public forum
2.e. MARUAH calls for greater public consultation on the CRC report; specifically, MCYS needs to engage the young

Basic health and welfare

3. Children with disabilities
3.a. Children with disabilities are not fully integrated into the education system
3.b. They should be given every opportunity to interact with other children on a regular basis
3.c. Include special schools and all children with disabilities under the Compulsory Education Act

Special protection measures

4. Juvenile justice
4.a. MCYS mentions “Notwithstanding the lower age of protection, there are currently safeguards and protective mechanisms within Singapore’s legislative framework to provide added protection to young offenders between 16 and 18.” (page 98, point 5.3)
4.b. What are the specific “safeguards and protective mechanisms”?
4.c. MARUAH notes that the MCYS report does not address the concerns raised by CRC committee [45a) on following UN guidelines, 45d) on prohibition of corporal punishment during detention]

Optional Protocols

5. MARUAH calls on Singapore to ratify the 2 Optional Protocols under CRC
5.a. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. Singaporeans engaged in paedophilia outside of Singapore should be subjected to the “long-arm” of the law.
5.b. Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict

In conclusion, we at MARUAH applaud the Government and all Singaporeans who participated in this dialogue for producing a document that is worthy of a society that prides itself for its child-friendly family values. We hope the amendments that we seek will be considered, and look forward to contributing to the larger process of establishing a culture of respect for fundamental human rights in Singapore.

Two weeks after Asean foreign ministers met in Singapore in an attempt to persuade the Myanmar government to allow greater access to humanitarian aid workers to the Irrawaddy delta in the wake of Cyclone Nargis, there has been backtracking by the Myanmar government. There are continuing reports of obstruction by officials.

In the Straits Times/AFP story, (A month after cyclone… 2.4m have no food, shelter still, ST 4 June 2008) it was reported that:

Aid agencies say 2.4million people are in need of food, medicine and shelter, and many live in tents or along the roadside.

The United Nations estimates that about 60per cent of them still have no foreign aid, and despite some easing of restrictions, the junta is under fire for its continued hampering of the flow of supplies to the worst-hit delta region.

And that

World Food Programme spokesman Paul Risley said its first helicopter to arrive in Yangon on May22 made its first trip to the delta only on Monday.

‘This is inhumane,’ said Mr Thin, a Myanmar volunteer providing aid to the stricken.

‘The Irrawaddy has for generations been the lifeblood of this country and villages there have provided us with food. Why are the survivors now being made to suffer?’

Meanwhile, Asean has deployed its Emergency Rapid Assessment Team to assess Myanmar’s aid needs.

It will present an initial report in about three weeks but will not complete its work until mid-July, Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said yesterday.

The last point is also inexplicable. How can an Emergency Rapid Assessment Team take 3 weeks to do an assessment?

In the same edition of the Straits Times, Poland’s ambassador to Singapore contributed an opinion-editorial:

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Source: Straits Times
4 June 2008

Protect human lives – no ifs, no buts

By Boguslaw Marcin Majewski, For The Straits Times

THE human sufferings following the deadly cyclone in Myanmar raised, yet again, the question of whether the international community should act when human rights in any country are threatened. Unfortunately, we have not worked out a mechanism which could provide a straightforward answer to this question.

The chief reason is that international law still concerns relations between states and not within them. But this is changing. States are beginning to recognise that they do hold legal powers for dealing with human rights violations beyond their sovereignty.

Relinquishing the concept of non-interference in the internal affairs of another state is no longer taboo now. Since the 1948 Declaration on Human Rights, the world has evolved and with it the interpretation of what constitutes a state.

Traditionally, a state is comprised of three elements: a defined area, a defined population and an effective system of power. The first two are usually easy to define; not so the third. What happens if ‘the power’ is unable to effectively control developments within its territory – as we are witnessing today in Myanmar?

Poland went through similar experiences. Twenty-seven years ago, the Polish ’state’ crushed a non-violent movement ‘in the name of state stability’. As in the case of Ms Aung San Suu Kyi in Myanmar today, the Polish state imprisoned its symbol of freedom, the Noble Peace Prize recipient Lech Walesa. What followed was the end of the Cold War.

Since then the world has gone through a crash course on how to respond to gross violations of human rights – in the former Yugoslavia, in Rwanda, in Darfur. The international community has become aware of the need to supplement its tools for dealing with such crimes – thus the creation of the International Criminal Court, which has jurisdiction over gross human rights violations in the territory of any state.

Totalitarian regimes still function in many places in the world. Strengthening their own power is their only end. Their societies are only a means to realise their own ambitions. Myanmar’s military junta is obviously such a regime.

Although the junta has agreed recently to accept international aid, it emphasises ‘rebuilding’ rather than ‘rescue’. Why? Because the window of opportunity when rescue could have made a life- and-death difference was wasted. The Council of Europe has indicated that the junta’s response to the tragedy should be considered a crime against humanity.

Since 2005 the international community has committed itself to the doctrine of ‘responsibility to protect’ or R2P – which stipulates the right to intervene when the ‘national authorities are manifestly failing to protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity’.

Many would argue that R2P should also apply in cases where a government refuses international humanitarian aid and creates a situation where tens of thousands of its citizens may die. Human life and dignity are of the same value irrespective of the country or the continent where fundamental standards of human rights are violated.

When aid is finally delivered to those in Myanmar who are in dire need, the international community will have to reflect on those for whom the aid came too late. The democratic world has an obligation to make sure that in future those who bear a responsibility to protect should act without hesitation – and if they fail to do so, they should be brought to justice.

The writer is Poland’s ambassador to Singapore.

16 May 2008
Source: Reliefweb

Elizabeth Ferris, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy
Lex Rieffel, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Global Economy and Development

The December 2004 tsunami that devastated the province of Aceh in Indonesia was a human tragedy but a political blessing in the form of a peace agreement. What are the chances that the dark cloud of Cyclone Nargis, which slammed Myanmar/Burma on May 3, will have the silver lining of being a catalyst for political change?

When the 2004 tsunami struck in Indonesia, the government had been fighting a secessionist movement in Aceh for more than four decades. The province had been under martial law for years and was off-limits for most international human rights groups, humanitarian aid organizations, and reporters. Susilo Bambang Yudhyono, who became president of Indonesia barely two months before the tsunami, took advantage of the disaster to open up Aceh (after some hesitation) and initiate negotiations with the secessionists. The results were one of the largest disaster recovery and reconstruction efforts in modern times, as well as th peace agreement which lead to the election of a former secessionist leader as governor of the province.

In the past two decades, over 200 million people per year have been affected by natural disasters. As the earth’s population increases and its atmosphere warms, floods, typhoons and hurricanes will undoubtedly occur more often, and will certainly have political consequences.

Recent experience suggests two links between disasters and politics. First, the more severe the disaster the greater the odds it will be politically destabilizing. Second, the odds of instability are greater in countries that have less developed political and economic systems.

On both counts, the odds of a break with the past in Myanmar should be high. From a meteorological perspective, Cyclone Nargis may not have been as severe as Hurricane Katrina, but Myanmar had experienced nothing comparable for generations, if ever. Politically and economically, Myanmar is only challenged by North Korea for the distinction of being the least developed country in Asia.

During the first ten days after Nargis swept through a good portion of Myanmar’s best rice-producing region (the Irrawaddy Delta) and across the country’s largest city (Yangon), the military rulers allowed only a trickle of foreign assistance to enter the country. First-hand reports have painted grim pictures of bodies floating in canals and homeless families moving to camps with inadequate facilities. External pressure on the regime has mounted to open the country to disaster relief teams from U.N. agencies, bilateral government agencies, and international NGOs. Given the abysmal record of the military regime in meeting the basic human needs of the country’s 50 million citizens over the past 45 years, foreign help (experts, food and material, money) will be necessary to avoid a great deal of needless suffering and a long recovery.

Despite the experience in the rest of the world, however, the odds are that Cyclone Nargis will have no discernible impact on the power structure in Myanmar. Indeed, the military leadership may gain more strength from the referendum on a new constitution held on May 10 than it loses from its lame efforts to help victims of the cyclone. This same regime after all has kept Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest for more than ten years, moved the capital on a whim, and put down the mass protests led by monks last September.

We live with a world order that has conflicting principles. One is the long-standing principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. By this principle, the government of Myanmar has the right to assume responsibility for repairing the damage caused by Cyclone Nargis and to decide what help to accept or reject from foreign sources. In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the U.S. government would have relied on the same principle to reject any aid from the United Nations, or any foreign government, that was conditioned on ceding responsibility for overseeing the delivery of the aid.

The other and much more recent principle is the right of the international community to help victims of ‘crimes against humanity’ who are being neglected by their governments, either deliberately or because they lack the capacity to help. While the principle of non-interference goes back to the founding of the United Nations, the ‘responsibility to protect’ (R2P) only became part of international law through a U.N. General Assembly resolution in 2005. Furthermore, R2P was created to guide international action when confronted with mass atrocities, not natural disasters, epidemics, or similar problems. The one case where it has been applied—Darfur—is not yet a success story, and any attempt to extend the R2P concept would be opposed by many U.N. members. Such an attempt could even critically weaken support for R2P in cases of genocide.

It seems likely, then, that the Myanmar regime will continue to refuse much of the assistance offered by foreign governments and international NGOs. Now the best hope for the victims of Cyclone Nargis may be that Myanmar’s ASEAN partners, together with neighbors China and India, will find enough non-threatening ways of delivering the right kind of aid before it’s too late.

Columnist Ravi Veloo of Today newspaper, argues for giving foreign domestic workers a treat on Mother’s Day too. Indeed, one of the greatest stumbling blooks to a more humane treatment of domestic maids is the insensitivity common among Singaporeans to the sacrifices made by these women.

In a separate article is a story about the difficulties of even giving them a mandatory day off. See here.

* * *

Source: Today
10 May 2008

With love, your Mothernista
Let’s spare a thought this Mother’s Day for the women who take care of our children

Ravi Veloo

IT TOOK a few thousand years, but here we are: There is a Mother’s Day and a Happy Mother’s Day to all moms, not counting the Ministry of Manpower, which also calls itself MOM.

Hopefully, it won’t take long before we recognise that a lot of women who never had children of their own are also mothers of sorts to our children.

We call them aunties. However, I think they should be called mothernistas.

Mothernistas are unmarried women in Singapore who take care of their relative’s children as if they were their own. These women bathe them, feed them, entertain them and love them all the same.

These women get no recognition: They have no Aunties’ Day or Mothernista Day, except for the child’s affection, an umbilical cord of devotion. And maybe, that’s enough for them because they do not seem to ask for more.

The cynic would say: “But that’s what it’s all about, not mothering but a rent-a-kid deal, single women toying with the serious business of mothership. No need to take them so seriously”.

But any mother who shares a child with her sisters knows this is not true. Mothernistas love their sibling’s children like their own. Ask the child and see.

So let’s spare a thought this Mother’s Day for these permanent residents of motherhood. No voting rights for them, they seldom get a say in the way the child grows up, but they always seem to be there for their nephews and nieces.

Another group of mothers much in the news recently are our maids.

Talk about sacrifice. Most of them leave their children back home to take care of our children for nothing more than a pittance. You would think an immigrant nation such as ours would understand what this means, but just look at how long it took us to give them the legal right to have just one day off a month.

Their lot is nothing less than indentured labour, or slavery with an exit pass. Sure, some bosses have problems with their domestic helpers, but most of them are the ones we trust to bathe, feed and care for our children every day.

If only Singaporeans would treat their maids to Mother’s Day too, remembering what our mothers and grandmothers went through to bring us here. Wouldn’t that be nice?

The writer is a media consultant.

By David Bowker and David Kaye

Six years ago, President George W. Bush granted American armed forces sweeping authority to detain and interrogate foreign members of Al Qaeda and their supporters and to use military commissions to try them. By doing so, the president set in motion the creation of military commissions and the detention camp in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

The Bush administration may legitimately claim certain benefits from the Guantánamo system. Some dangerous men are held there, and valuable intelligence has probably been gathered, perhaps even some that has enabled the government to disrupt terrorist activities. But the costs have been high: Guantánamo has come to be seen worldwide as a stain on America’s reputation.

The number of detainees has steadily dropped to a little over 300, from its peak of more than 700, no more than 80 of whom are likely to face any kind of American prosecution. Not a single defendant has gone to trial, and only one has pleaded guilty.

It’s time to take a close look at this system of detention and prosecution and establish viable alternatives. The following data provide a historical snapshot:

- Number of “high-value detainees” now at Guantánamo – 15

- Approximate percentage of detainees found to have committed “hostile acts” against the United States or coalition forces before detention – 53

- Approximate number of countries of which detainees are citizens – 40

- Most represented countries – Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Yemen

- Cost of building Guantánamo high-security detention facilities – about $54 million

- Estimated annual cost of operating Guantánamo – $90 million to $118 million

- Cost of “expeditionary legal complex” for the military commission (under construction) – $10 million to $12 million

- Number of books in the Guantánamo detention library – 5,143

- Number of Korans issued to detainees from January 2002 to June 2005 – more than 1,600

- Number of daily calories per detainee – Up to 4,200

- Average weight gain per detainee – 20 pounds

- Number of pills dispensed per day – 1,000, to 200-300 detainees

- Number of apparent suicides – 4

- Number of apparent suicide attempts: 41, by 25 detainees (as of May 2006)

- Number of detainee assaults on guards using “bodily fluids” – more than 400

- Date of first visit to Guantánamo by the International Committee of the Red Cross – Jan. 18, 2002

- Approximate number of visits by lawyers to Guantánamo detainees this year – 1,100

- Month of first habeas corpus petition filed to challenge detention at Guantánamo – January 2002

- Number of habeas corpus petitions filed in federal courts on behalf of detainees – roughly 300

- Number of detainees designated by the president as “eligible” for trial by military commission – 14

- Number actually charged with crimes (for example, murder and material support for terrorism) – 10

- Number of pending cases – 3

- Number of convictions: – 1 (an Australian who pleaded guilty to material support of terrorism and was sentenced to nine months of confinement in his home country)

- Estimated number of detainees who may be charged in the future – 80

- Date of first release of a detainee – May 2002 (one detainee repatriated to Afghanistan because of an “emotional breakdown”)

- Approximate number of detainees released – 445

- Approximate number of current detainees found eligible for transfer or release – 70

- Countries to which Guantánamo detainees have been transferred – Albania, Afghanistan, Australia, Bangladesh, Bahrain, Belgium, Britain, Denmark, Egypt, France, Germany, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Libya, Maldives, Mauritania, Morocco, Pakistan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Spain, Sweden, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkey, Uganda, Yemen

- Most recent announced transfer of detainees from Guantánamo – Nov. 4 (eight to Afghanistan, three to Jordan)

- Personal items provided to detainees upon departure – a Koran, a denim jacket, a white T-shirt, a pair of blue jeans, high-top sneakers, a gym bag of toiletries and a pillow and blanket for the flight home

- Number of detainees said by Pentagon to have resumed hostile activities against the United States after release – at least 30

- Number of U.S. senators who voted in favor of a nonbinding resolution that Guantánamo detainees “should not be released into American society, nor should they be transferred stateside into facilities in American communities and neighborhoods” – 94

- Number of bills in Congress calling for the closing of Guantánamo – 3

- Number of members of the House of Representatives who signed a letter to Bush in June 2007 urging him to close Guantánamo and move the detainees to military prisons in the United States – 145

- Number of Republicans who signed the letter – 1

- Democratic presidential candidates who are on record supporting closing Guantánamo – 8

- Republican presidential candidates who are – 2 (John McCain and Ron Paul)

- Closest American allies that have called for Guantánamo’s closing – Britain, France, Germany

- Next scheduled legal test of the Guantánamo system – Boumediene v. Bush, a challenge to the denial of habeas corpus, set for argument before the U.S. Supreme Court on Dec. 5

David Bowker, a lawyer in New York, and David Kaye, the acting director of the Program on International Human Rights Law at the University of California, Los Angeles, were staff lawyers at the U.S. State Department during the Clinton and Bush administrations.