Iran's child rights report questioned

The report on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in the Islamic Republic of Iran was discussed and reviewed by 21 non-governmental organizations defending children's rights, including the Kurdistan Human Rights Society - Geneva, in the presence of Timur Eliasi, the representative of this Kurdish organization to the United Nations.

At the 71st session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, this global body, the issue of education in the mother tongue (Kurdish) and the dangers of landmine explosions for Kurdish children was on the committee's agenda.

The report submitted indicates that Ms. Winter, spokesperson for the Committee on the Rights of the Child, addressed the Iranian government delegation at a meeting last Monday, stating that what harm does mother tongue education for children of ethnic groups in Iran do to the Persian language?

The head of the Iranian delegation present at the UN meeting responded to the proposal of the Kurdistan Human Rights Society and claimed that only Persian is the official and national language, and that we are trying to teach other local and ethnic languages ​​in schools.

Mr. Nelson, another member of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, also asked the delegation of the Islamic Republic of Iran about the dangers of landmines that threaten the lives of children.

Timur Eliasi, a human rights activist and participant in the meeting on January 11 and 12, told Kurdistan Regional Government Agency: "In addition to the issues mentioned, forcing girls to wear the hijab in school, the execution of children under the age of eighteen, the situation of street children, sexual abuse and violence against children, etc. were discussed at the 71st session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child."

The head of the Iranian delegation, in defense of the government's plans, stated that we are trying to reduce discrimination against children's rights in Iran to zero by 2030. This statement by Mahmoud Abbasi was met with a reaction from the head of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, who said to the Iranian government delegation: "You made similar statements 10 years ago."

Abbasi, the head of the Iranian delegation, in response to questions raised about the execution of children in Iran, says that we consider the legal age of responsibility to be 15 years old, and based on a law passed three years ago, people under the age of 18 are tried in special courts and punished if they have an understanding of the nature of what they have done.

Statements like this from the Iranian delegation come at a time when, according to a report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, there are 160 child criminals sentenced to death in Iran.

Regarding the existence of circumcision among girls in Kurdistan, the representative of the Vice Presidency for Women and Family Affairs in Iran, acknowledging such a problem, spoke of the "freedom of Sunnis, especially followers of the Shafi'i school," and justified it.

Iran's 2016 report on children's rights was heavily criticized by human rights defenders, who considered it far from the realities of Iran and Kurdistan.