COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF CHILD EXAMINES REPORT OF DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
The Committee on the Rights of the Child today reviewed the second periodic report of the Dominican Republic on how that country is implementing the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Introducing the report, Tilza Ares, Director-General of the National Council for Children and Adolescents of the Dominican Republic, said that the Committee's concluding observations on the Dominican Republic's initial report – submitted in 1998, and as supplemented in 2000 – had formed important benchmarks for the Dominican Republic in the area of children's and adolescents' rights for the five-year period 2001-2006. For one, a draft Family Code was expected to be submitted to the legislature in the coming months, incorporating the Committee's suggestion of setting the age for marriage at 16 years old for both sexes, with parental consent and judicial approval. In addition, on 7 August 2004 the Government had promulgated the Act establishing the Code for the System of Protection of the Fundamental Rights of Children and Adolescents. The general principles of the Code included seven aspects that clearly reflected its congruence with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and showed how minors were legally incorporated into the world of citizenship, including the principle of equality and non-discrimination for all underage persons and the giving of absolute priority to children's and adolescents' rights.
Lothar Krappmann, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the report of the Dominican Republic, in preliminary concluding remarks, said that obviously there was a lot in the pipeline: draft laws, initiated reforms and structures. Some time was needed for progress to be visible. They needed to meet again soon to examine the whole positive effects of all those measures. He wished that the Government would be extremely successful in its endeavours, and that the children of the Dominican Republic reaped the benefit.
Rosa María Ortiz, the Committee Expert serving as co-Rapporteur for the report of the Dominican Republic, in additional concluding remarks, emphasized the need to involve non-governmental organizations and international organizations such as UNICEF in assessing progress achieved to date. The Committee would make recommendations in the areas of legislation for children that had to be made compatible with the Convention; coordination on children's issues; and the development of disaggregated data. There had not been much progress on article 12 issues (children's views), and children's participation, and she was concerned that there did not appear to be any children's assemblies or other children's bodies. Non-discrimination, priority for the best interests of the child, and children's civil and political rights, and in particular adolescents' education and health, were areas that required preferential treatment, to ensure that the State did not encounter adolescents in the context of conflict of law situations.
During the meeting, other Experts raised a series of questions pertaining to, among other things, laws for holding of children in administrative and legal detention; more information on the new laws regarding violence against women and children; whether there were any shelters for abused children; concerns about reports that children of Haitian descent, asylum-seeking, disabled children, and girls faced discrimination in access to social services; whether cases of child labour had been identified for criminal sanctions; and what concrete results had been achieved in assisting street children. A particular concern was the fact that a research study reported that 50 per cent of parents and teachers in the Dominican Republic used corporal punishment. In that same connection, the torture and ill-treatment of children in institutions, and particularly in judicial detention, was worrying. A further worry was that offenders reportedly viewed the country as a "child sex tourism paradise".
The Committee will release its formal, written concluding observations and recommendations on the second periodic report of the Dominican Republic towards the end of its three-week session, which will conclude on 1 February 2008.
The delegation of the Dominican Republic also included the Ambassador with the portfolio for women's, children's and adolescents' affairs of the Chancellery of the Dominican Republic, and other representatives from the National Council for Children and Adolescents, the Ministry for Economy, Planning and Development, the Ministry of Public Health and Social Welfare, the Ministry of Education, the Public Prosecutor's Office, and the Permanent Mission of the Dominican Republic to the United Nations Office at Geneva.
As one of the 193 States parties to the Convention, the Dominican Republic is obliged to present periodic reports to the Committee on its efforts to comply with the provisions of the treaty. The delegation was on hand throughout the day to present the report and to answer questions raised by Committee Experts.
When the Committee next reconvenes in public at 10 a.m. on Thursday, 24 January, it will consider the initial reports of Kuwait under the Convention’s two Optional Protocols, on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography (CRC/C/KWT/OPAC 1 and CRC/C/KWT/OPSC/1).
Report of the Dominican Republic
The second periodic report of the Dominican Republic (CRC/C/DOM/2) describes the advances made in human rights for children and adolescents in the Dominican Republic during the five-year period from 2001 to 2006. As regards child labour, according to the Dominican Republic’s National Survey of Child Labour, in 2002, some 436,000 children and adolescents between the ages of 5 and 17 were employed, accounting for 18 per cent of all children and adolescents. The vast majority (90 per cent) began working before the age of 15. According to the 2002 National Population and Health Census, the percentage of persons who had not completed primary education decreased by half between 1996 and 2002, from 20 to 10 per cent. Significant progress has been made in recent years in terms of expanding coverage, especially as concerns preschool education (34.3 per cent) and primary education (93.9 per cent) (for 2000-2001 school year). The combined primary, secondary and tertiary gross enrolment rate is 77 per cent, below the Latin American and the Caribbean average of 81 per cent. Teenage pregnancy is among the factors contributing to the dropout rate. The teenage pregnancy rate is extremely high: 19 per cent of all teenage girls in the Dominican Republic have given birth to a child, and some 23 per cent have been pregnant at least once. Girls with a certain level of education are less likely to marry and to start families early, as contrasted with those who do not complete a suitable level of education, which can be a factor in perpetuating poverty. In that connection, the programme for Affective Sex Education, coordinated with the Presidential AIDS Council, includes the following thematic modules: prevention of violence within the family, prevention of abuse, and the prevention of teenage pregnancies. Under this programme 26,018 teachers were trained, including 10,300 secondary school teachers, representing 92 per cent of all teachers and directors of the 17 regional education departments
The National Council for Children and Adolescents, a decentralized institution with its own assets, is responsible for implementing policies, programmes, projects and initiatives for children’s and adolescents’ rights within the country by liaising between and coordinating governmental and non-governmental institutions at the local and national level. The country also has a number of plans through which it is intended to implement the Convention, including the National Plan to Guarantee the Rights of Children and Adolescents (2003-2013); the Strategic National Plan for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour; and, under the Inter-Agency Commission on Abuse and Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, the Action Plan to Combat Abuse and Commercial Sexual Exploitation, which was reformulated by the Commission in 2002 along the lines of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Agenda for Action, the outcome of the World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children, held in 1996 in Stockholm, and incorporating the recommendations of the Second World Congress, held in 2001 in Yokohama (Japan).
Presentation of Report
TILZA ARES, Director-General of the National Council for Children and Adolescents of the Dominican Republic, said that the Committee's concluding observations on the Dominican Republic's initial report – which had been submitted in 1998, and supplemented in 2000 – had formed important benchmarks for the Dominican Republic in the area of children's and adolescents’ rights for the five-year period 2001-2006.
For one, the Committee had voiced its concerns about the gender disparity legal ages for marriage. In that respect, Ms. Ares announced that a draft Family Code was expected to be submitted to the legislature in the coming months. The Committee's suggestion of 16 years of age for marriage, with the approval of the parents and the registration with the competent approval of the relevant court, had been taken into account.
In terms of general application, in response to the Committee's suggestions, the Dominican Republic had embarked in 2001 on a second reform of its basic legal framework for the protection of children and adolescents, Ms. Ares said. As a result of that process, on 7 August 2004 the Government had promulgated the Act establishing the Code for the System of Protection of the Fundamental Rights of Children and Adolescents, which had entered into force on 17 October 2005. The general principles of the Code included, among others, seven aspects that clearly reflected its congruence with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and showed how minors were legally incorporated into the world of citizenship: definition of children and adolescents as subjects of law; equality and non-discrimination for all underage persons; the best interest of children and adolescents; absolute priority given to upholding the rights of that population group; the State’s obligations in that respect; the right to family life; and society’s participation in the drafting, implementation and design of policies and programmes.
The recognition of fundamental rights and guarantees covered two areas, namely “new rights” and the “review” of existing rights, Ms. Ares continued. New rights comprised recognition of the fundamental rights of children and adolescents, including the right to a name and nationality; the right to be registered in a civil registry; the right to maintain relations with all members of the family; the right to culture, sports, recreation and leisure time; the right to entertainment; the right to a healthy environment; the right to personal integrity and to the recovery of rights; and the right to challenge abuse. In addition to those issues relating to the special status of children and adolescents, the Code established fundamental rights for children and adolescents to which all citizens were entitled, such as the right to express views and to be heard and to participate and the right of access to information.
The recognition of fundamental rights and freedoms also implied the establishment of duties, Ms. Areas pointed out, and those would be discussed at length later in connection with the issue of the criminal responsibility of adolescents. The law also established the right to protection against all forms of labour exploitation. As far as the review of “old” rights was concerned, the reform basically recognized social rights, especially the rights to health and education, as enforceable.
Finally, among other areas of action on concerns raised by the Committee was the situation of street children, Ms. Ares concluded. On 23 November 2007, the National Council for Children and Adolescents had launched the first national action plan to deal with that complex problem, which had been developed in conjunction with relevant non-governmental organizations, the United Nations Children's Fund and the International Labour Organization.
Questions by Experts
LOTHAR KRAPPMANN, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the Report of the Dominican Republic, was concerned that the report presented by the Dominican Republic did not directly address the many important problem areas facing children in the Dominican Republic, among them, legal and illegal migration, open and hidden discrimination, violence and other problems, which the reader could only conclude from references to laws or prevention programmes mentioned in the report. He further regretted that the report did not refer to the concluding observations of the Committee in 2001, with one exception.
The legal framework and the toolbox for dealing with instruments for the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child was well developed in the Dominican Republic, but the report contained no concrete information about how those laws were applied or how those programmes were being implemented, Mr. Krappmann said. There were no paragraphs in the addressing article 4 of the Convention (requiring States Parties to undertake legislative, administrative, and other measures to implement rights under the Convention to "the maximum extent of their available resources"). And there was no information about a children's budget. Happily, there were some graphs in the annex that showed upward trends in spending on children. However, more detailed budget information on children's issues was needed, including actual allocations and ceilings for spending on children, and long-term budget plans regarding children.
Mr. Krappmann commended the Dominican Republic for the new Code for the System of Protection of the Fundamental Rights of Children and Adolescents. No doubt it was a good law. It was clearly based on the principles of the Convention: children as subjects, children's best interests, protection of the family, etc. But it would be interesting to learn how those principles were made operational. The principle of best interests, for example, had to be mainstreamed into all areas affecting children.
The National Council for Children and Adolescents was responsible for the implementation of the Code for the System of the Protection of Children. However, Mr. Krappmann was concerned about efforts to make that system fully functioning and effective on the ground, with the establishment of local protection boards. From the report, it was not clear that there was a strategy to ensure that and that a budget had been allocated for that purpose.
The Government had several action plans for children – the National Plan to Guarantee the Rights of Children and Adolescents; the strategic National Plan for the Elimination of the Worst Forms of Child Labour; and, under the Action Plan to Combat Abuse and Commercial Sexual Exploitation. These were good plans, Mr. Krappmann said. But there was no information about concrete activities and resources allocated to implement those plans.
There was also a lack of data on violations of children's rights. In particular, that data needed to be disaggregated to allow for targeted preventive measures to be designed. How would the Government further improve child data collection and analysis, Mr. Krappmann asked?
Birth registration was another area of concern. Mr. Krappmann could not believe that the number of children in the country was reliably known, given how many children were registered much later in life, and that an estimated 22 to 30 per cent of children were not registered just last year. This led to a feeling that all the statistics on children in the report were unreliable.
The report said that all newborns had to be registered. However, the many initiatives undertaken by the Government apparently could not rectify this, for reasons including the refusal of birth registration on the basis of the parents' nationality, the lack of parental documents, extra requirements for certain groups of parents, and relatively high costs. Certain groups encountered the largest difficulties, including the extreme poor, Haitian migrants, teenage mothers and others. Mr. Krappmann urged the Government to rectify this important problem, which deprived children of the right to a nationality.
ROSA MARÍA ORTIZ, the Committee Expert serving as co-Rapporteur for the Report of the Dominican Republic, on the issue of a child rights protection system, was concerned about the coordinating role given to the National Council for Children and Adolescents. The reports and responses indicated that the Council had various significant programmes carrying out direct activities helping families and children. It could not give direct care and attention, on the one hand, and at the same time act as a coordinator of all the various government and civil actions in this area. The result appeared to be that there was insufficient coordination.
One example of that lack of coordination, Ms. Ortiz pointed out, was that the current national plan – National Plan to Guarantee the Rights of Children and Adolescents (2003-2013) – did not appear to cover all areas with regard to children's rights, did not have a mechanism for being evaluated and assessed, and did not link up with the various sectoral plans.
Other Experts then raised a series of questions pertaining to, among other things, the legal status of the Convention in the State party; what were the current laws regarding holding of children in both administrative and legal detention; more information on the new laws regarding violence against women and children, which appeared in some cases to actually lower protections for children; and information on discrimination against children, in particular given reports that children of Haitian descent, asylum-seeking and disabled children, and girls in the Dominican Republic faced discrimination in terms of access to social services.
There was no mention of corporal punishment in the report. Although physical abuse and physical harm were defined criminalized, corporal punishment was not specifically criminalized in the home, and that meant that it was de facto permitted, an Expert concluded. It appeared that corporal punishment was widely accepted in the home, and a research study reported that 50 per cent of parents and teachers used corporal punishment. In this same connection, the torture and ill-treatment of children in institutions, and particularly in judicial detention, was worrying. Reports had also been received that children were incarcerated with adults.
An Expert asked when the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, signed in 1985, would be ratified by the Dominican Republic. Indeed the Dominican Republic appeared to have signed many international agreements related to the Convention on the Rights of the Child that it had not ratified, including the Convention on the Protection of Migrant Workers and Member of Their Families, and the Convention on Persons with Disabilities.
Finally, an Expert clarified that the Committee had requested the Dominican Republic to raise the marriage age to 18 years for both men and women, and asked what action was being taken in that regard.
Response by the Delegation
Responding to these questions and others, the delegation said that it should be remembered that the National System for the Protection of the Child was divided into two subsystems: the administrative and the judicial. It was true that the National Council for Children and Adolescents was responsible for the administrative side, including programmes for the protection of children. But that was being restructured, and the Council was exploring not working directly with protection services and merely supervising them.
As for the local protection boards of this child protection machinery, the delegation said there were currently 10 regional offices, for each of the countries' 10 regions. The Government had begun installing municipal offices in October 2007, with 44 municipal offices created so far, and 11 to be established during 2008. There were 110 municipalities, and it was expected that 50 per cent of them would have local protection boards by 2010. In addition, a handbook for those offices would be elaborated this year.
In terms of the component of the protection system relative to the Office of the Ombudsman for children and adolescents, the delegation said that a law had been promulgated establishing an Ombudsman's Office in 2001, and it was hoped that the Office would be operational soon. The Act contained a list of candidates from civil society, which would be put to Parliament for a vote.
As for mainstreaming the best interests of the child principle into legislation, as well as with reference to addressing discrimination faced by Haitian children in accessing the educational system, the delegation said that the Government had recently promulgated the 659 Law which allowed for all children in the territory to attend school, whether they had a birth certificate or not.
On statistics, in terms of establishing hard numbers, in particular how many people in the country were not registered, a National Population and Health Census was conducted every four years, the delegation said, with the last one being conducted last year.
The Convention had Constitutional ranking in the Dominican Republic, the delegation said. The law did not contradict, but rather complemented it. It could be, and was, invoked directly in the courts, and it was mandatory for all State institutions to incorporate its principles. Domestic legislation had been reviewed and harmonized, and several laws, where necessary, made reference to it.
Giving some background on budget allocations, the delegation said that the Dominican Republic had been faced with a commercial crisis with the collapse of its main commercial banks in 2003 and 2004, which had had a significant impact on the State's ability to carry out its social programmes, in particular for children. Before the crisis, 12 per cent of the budget went to servicing State debt. Following the crisis, 25 per cent was going to pay the debt. Notwithstanding that challenge, the Government had increased its social spending in recent years. Nearly 9 per cent of gross domestic product was now being allocated to social spending, as opposed to 7 per cent just two years ago. The goal was to hit 14 per cent by 2015, as part of the Dominican Republic's commitments under the Millennium Development Goals.
While there was no specific budget item allocated to children, which was considered a crosscutting category, government investment in the social sector was closely linked to child protection, the delegation stressed. In 2001, a structural reform programme was established in the field of social security, and a universal health insurance system was set up for the entire population. All had a guaranteed right to family health insurance. If a family could not pay their contribution, it would be paid by the State.
There was also a new programme of resource transfer to poor populations which covered some 300,000 households, and which was budgeted to cover some 400,000 families this year. Families could receive up to $30 per month, but those allocations were linked to child protection measures, such as child vaccinations, school attendance, etc.
In terms of the sectoral plans for children and how they related to the national 10-year plan of action, the delegation said that last year there had been a reform of the national planning system. In future there would be a purely annual plan for children, as well as a multi-year plan for children, both of which would incorporate all of the sectoral plans.
Further Questions by Experts
During the second round of questions, the co-Rapporteur Ms. Ortiz asked about institutions for residential care of children and adolescents, wondered why there were more females than males in the north of the country in care, and more males than females in the south, and what were the ages of those in care. There was a high number – 4,000 – of children in some kind of care other than parental care in the country. Some 637 were in "transitory homes" in 2007. Was that the same as foster care? And what kind of supervisory structures were there for that care?
Of particular concern were children left behind with family members by economic migrants. What efforts were taken, in particular through agreements with the receiving countries, to ensure that family links were maintained? Similarly what programmes ensured that migrants to the Dominican Republic, that is, Haitian children, received the social services to which they were due?
The Rapporteur, Mr. Krappmann, while expressing his deep concern about the extreme poverty in the country, noted that the Dominican Republic had the highest growth rate in the region, at 10 per cent last year. Economic experts were talking about the "Dominican economic miracle". How come that wealth was not reflected in terms of the poverty rate? What plans were in place to tap that new wealth to reduce poverty? However, poverty reduction did not mean just money distribution. It was essential to improve the infrastructure and the care and educational facilities for children. In that connection, what was the Government's poverty reduction strategy and did it contain a component on children? Were there special programmes for early childhood education and targeting children in urban areas?
Other Experts asked further questions on topics including, among others, whether there was sufficient to political will to implement cross-sectoral plans to improve children's health; what plans existed to combat alcohol, smoking and drugs; given the high number of teenage pregnancies – at one quarter of all births in the country – what were the sexual and reproductive health programmes for adolescent girls, including education programmes; education facilities and policies for special needs children, in particular for children with milder disabilities, such as Down's Syndrome; low completion rates for primary and secondary education, below international standards, and what enforcement and monitoring measures existed to implement and assess the plans to address the dropout rate; whether parents were included in programmes to increase school attendance; enrolment rates for pregnant girls; and statistics on disabled children showing their school enrolment rates in urban and rural areas.
In further questions, Experts asked if children were able to make a complaint directly to a national complaint mechanism; whether cases of child labour had been identified for criminal sanctions, how many had been brought before the courts, and what penalties had been applied; what concrete results had been achieved for street children; for more details on existing programmes run for street children by the military; and whether any evaluation had been undertaken of non-governmental organization programmes to help street children. An Expert, noting that the Dominican Republic had the unfortunate reputation of being a "child sex tourism paradise" for offenders, wanted to hear more about what was being done to combat that phenomenon and to protect children.
Response by Delegation
Responding to those and other questions, the delegation said, with regard to the greater concentration of males or females in institutional care in one region or another, that was due to the fact that offenders were sent to particular institutions based on age and sex, and the figures reflected an imbalance in the number of institutions for a given age and sex by region, and not gender disparities in the numbers of offenders by region.
Street children taken in by the police would be sent to special centres where they were cared for and fed, the delegation said. Then professional teams would undertake an investigation to find their families and work with all involved to develop a strategy to reinsert the child in their family and community if possible. Afterwards, the professionals took follow-up measures to ensure the reinsertion had been successful.
Children 12 and above were consulted and their opinion was taken into account when a decision on placement was taken whether it be with an extended family member, with a foster care family, or an adoptive family. As for falling numbers of adoptions, that had been due to new administrative procedures. In the past there had been a high number of abandoned children; new policies in place in hospitals had led to many cases of abandonment to be headed off by placing the child with a member of the extended family or other temporary arrangements.
On migration issues, the delegation pointed out that, first, that issue had hit a crisis point when the United States listed the Dominican Republic under category three, meaning that it was a country that did not do enough to combat human trafficking. They then had to work aggressively to address the problem, by adopting legislation and creating institutions to put some order to a thoroughly disorderly situation. It should be remembered that the Dominican Republic was not just a country of origin, it shared its island with the Haiti, and that the "border" was largely a fictional creation – there were only two border posts. Every hospital was required to register all births. The only difference according to the parents' nationality was a colour difference: a foreign mother non-resident was given a pink registration certificate. The criminal penalty was 10 years imprisonment for anyone who facilitated trafficking or illegal migration, and 15 years for anyone participating in human trafficking. In addition a body had been established to protect migrant women victims of trafficking, and a public awareness campaign had been launched to publicize it.
Sensational work had been done in the Dominican Republic to combat sexual exploitation, the delegation said. Representatives had participated in an international symposium in Italy with tour operators, and had pled for them to join in the Government's efforts to curb child sex tourism. The United Nations Children's Fund had also contributed to efforts in this area. Two years ago, three programmes had been implemented for preventing and eradicating the worst forms of child labour in tourist areas, with a focus on the child sex trade. The national police, the teachers, community leaders and judicial authorities in those areas had also received training to create a community of "permanent supervision" of such cases.
As for child sex abuse, because of the culture and the way the laws were structured it was very difficult to denounce a child sex abuser, because the whistleblowers left themselves open to charges themselves. There were programmes in the schools, to teach children about respect for their sexual integrity, and to defend themselves. A helpline called "24 hours" also existed to help child victims.
If a case of child abuse was reported, there was a team of psychologists and social workers immediately dispatched. If it was not safe to leave the child with a member of his or her extended family, then the child would be placed in a safe shelter until the case was adjudicated. There were specialized schools to train those involved in the judicial system, and for the police, and children's rights and child abuse were a compulsory part of those programmes.
The Dominican Republic had unfortunately suffered the importation of youth gangs or "maras" from the United States, where there were many Dominican nationals. These gangs had previously been unknown in the country. The United States was deporting back to the Dominican Republic children, youths and adolescents who had gotten on the wrong side of the law – who had either served their time or had opted for deportation. The United States was creating a social disorder of inconceivable proportions. There was legislation in place to address the situation, as well as a unit of the police to deal with youth gangs, but it took time for those efforts to bear fruit. Members of the Public Prosecutor's Office had to be trained, the political will to address the situation had to be built, and it all took time. Results could not be expected in just three or four years.
As of July 2005 there was a directorate for juvenile criminal justice, the delegation said. The Judicial Police for Children and Adolescents had been established as a supporting department of the juvenile criminal justice system. It was a technical body that specialized in the investigation and prosecution of criminal acts alleged to have been committed by adolescents and provided assistance to the Office of the Public Prosecutor for Children and Adolescents. Both male and female officials who had been trained to work with adolescents and to respect human rights staffed that specialized department. Children between the ages of 14 and 18 who were detained could be in constant touch with a lawyer.
The Office of the Public Prosecutor for Children and Adolescents had 24 hours to bring an adolescent in custody before a judge. If the time limit was exceeded the child was immediately released. That rule was strictly enforced, the delegation said. There were five juvenile delinquent detention centres in the Dominican Republic, two of them in the capital district. Under the law, anyone under 13 could not be imprisoned nor could judicial measures be taken. The National Council for Children and Adolescents was tasked with setting up a programme for such children to ensure that they did not end up in the penal system.
While ill-treatment and torture of minors in judicial detention may have occurred in the past, measures had been taken to ensure that it did not happen now, the delegation underscored. However, the "maras" or gangs existed within the penitentiary system, threatening the children there, and creating a culture of violence. At present there were no children held in adult prisons. New facilities had been created and, since 2002, no adolescent was jailed on the same premises with an adult.
There was a complaint mechanism in the juvenile justice system that met every two weeks. Judges could then investigate the complaints at the centres. In follow-up, if the centre was in fact not meeting requirements, the Public Ministry could pick up the complaint and act thereon, the delegation said.
Turning to issues of poverty, the delegation said that, prior to the recent economic crisis, 30 per cent of children lived in poverty. That percentage had risen to 50 per cent in 2003/04, showing how precarious the Dominican Republic's social security programme was. Approximately 1.5 million children had fallen into poverty in just over 18 months. Today, they had reduced poverty by 11 per cent, but that was a small achievement compared to the rise in poverty over the two-year period mentioned.
As had been mentioned this morning, reforms had recently been undertaken in the social security system to address this situation, including developing a social security network for the most vulnerable populations, including children and the disabled. There was also a National Poverty Reduction Strategy, which was currently under review. As for providing opportunities for youth, the Government had recently launched a national competition plan to develop and encourage the growth of small and medium-sized enterprises, the delegation added.
On educational reform, and plans to ensure students stayed in school, the Ministry of Education had been working with the support of international bodies, such as the European Union, to align the Government's education plans with other government plans. A plan to prevent dropouts, for example, was linked to a plan to increase the number of teachers and a plan to provide textbooks and other school materials. There were also a scholastic merit programme to stimulate training through incentives to schoolchildren to continue their studies and an inclusive education programme, designed to guarantee that children with special education needs had access to - and stayed in - primary education, among others.
Still on education, the delegation said that in the education budget for this year and last year the overwhelming focus had been on the building of new schools, and in the reduction of dropouts. Through one programme, social workers visited the parents in rural areas to encourage them to ensure that their children attended school. There were also programmes for reinsertion of children who had dropped out back into the system, including technical training programmes.
As for the health component of social services reform, this year had been declared as the National Year of Health Promotion, the delegation said. Primary health care was being promoted, but the challenges were great, including high infant mortality, and high maternal mortality. To combat that, the Ministry of Health had launched the "Progresando" health care programme as the centrepiece of its reform. A preliminary assessment of the programme had determined that achievements were being made, although maternal mortality strangely remained high – despite 98 per cent of births taking place in hospitals. The reason had to do with clandestine abortions. Importantly, the wider social security programme for all was expected to feed into progress achieved in the health area.
The delegation stressed that the emphasis was being placed on regional efforts to strengthen children's health, including through vaccination campaigns. The recent economic crisis had highlighted the role of the regional response in handling catastrophes.
On infant mortality, the results were "encouraging", the delegation felt. Comparing infant mortality last year with its 2002 figure, it remained low at 32 per thousand live births as compared with 31 per thousand. If one considered that over a million Dominicans had fallen into poverty since then, that was an achievement.
Turning to anti-alcohol campaigns, the delegation observed that a recent clamp down on drinking – focused on adults, but with spill over effects for children – required bars to close at midnight on weekdays and 2 a.m. on weeknights. Liquor stores were also required to enforce laws which prohibited the sale of liquor to minors. To combat a culture of permissiveness in this area, a campaign had been launched to ensure that that happened. A side benefit had been a reduced number of traffic accidents.
Measures to prevent teenage pregnancy included sexual education in schools at the secondary level, and ensuring that pregnant women had professional care during pregnancy, with 98.9 per cent of births last year occurring in hospitals, the delegation said.
As to why the military was involved in programmes for street children, the delegation noted that that programme had started before the recent social reform. The military programme was called the Directorate for the Civic Training of Street Children, which aimed at teaching the children civics and cared for the children during the week. On the weekend the children went home. In fact, that programme was a great success. The first programme had 45 children. They did not go on to pursue careers in the military, but largely entered vocational training programmes.
Preliminary Remarks
LOTHAR KRAPPMANN, the Committee Expert serving as Rapporteur for the Report of the Dominican Republic, in preliminary concluding remarks, said that obviously there was a lot in the pipeline: draft laws, initiated reforms and structures. Some time was needed for progress to be visible. They needed to meet again soon to examine the whole positive effects of all those measures. He wished that the Government would be extremely successful in its endeavours, and that the children of the Dominican Republic reaped the benefit.
ROSA MARÍA ORTIZ, the Committee Expert serving as co-Rapporteur for the Report of the Dominican Republic, in additional concluding remarks, thanked the delegation of the Dominican Republic for an interesting and important dialogue and hoped it would continue. She emphasized the need to involve non-governmental organizations and international organizations such as UNICEF in assessing progress achieved to date.
Ms. Ortiz said the Committee would make recommendations in the areas of legislation for children that had to be made compatible with the Convention; coordination on children's issues, which the National Council for Children and Adolescents could undertake; and the development of disaggregated data, which were very important in allowing the State party to identify human and economic resources.
There had not been much progress on article 12 issues (children's views), and children's participation, and Ms. Ortiz was concerned that there did not appear to be any children's assemblies or other children's bodies. Non-discrimination, priority for the best interests of the child and children's civil and political rights were further concerns for recommendations. Adolescents' education and health were areas that required preferential treatment, so that the State did not encounter adolescents in the context of conflict of law situations.
For use of the information media; not an official record
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