CRC/C/15/Add.170
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28.
The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a)
Strengthen its efforts to provide training for professionals - such as teachers,
health professionals including psychological care specialists, social workers, law
enforcement officials, judges, lawyers and national ministerial and local government
officials with responsibility for children’s rights - children, parents and the population in
general, and distinct ethnic, religious, linguistic or cultural groups, on the Convention and
its principles and provisions and other relevant human rights instruments in a systematic
and ongoing manner;
(b)
Adopt measures to ensure that training and/or information campaigns reach,
among others, populations in rural communities and illiterate persons;
(c)
Ensure that translated versions of the Convention are disseminated, as
needed, in the languages spoken within the State party by the distinct groups referred to
under paragraph 28 (a) of these concluding observations.
2. Definition of the child
29.
Taking note of the State party’s indication of its intention to change legislation and define
the age of majority uniformly as 18, and noting the Special Committee that has been appointed in
this regard, the Committee is concerned:
(a)
At inconsistencies in the definitions of a child within the State party’s legislation,
including that under civil law a minor is a person who has not reached age 18 while under penal
law a minor is a person who has not reached 17;
(b)
aged 17.
30.
That domestic legislation allows the drafting into the armed forces of children
The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a)
Clarify the age of majority, with particular regard to penal law and the
international practice that juvenile justice standards are extended to children up until
age 18;
(b)
Raise, in light of the provisions of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on
the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict signed by the State
party in September 2000, the minimum age at which persons can be conscripted into the
armed forces to at least age 18.
3. General principles
31.
The Committee is concerned that the principles of non-discrimination (article 2 of the
Convention), best interests of the child (art. 3) and respect for the views of the child (art. 12) are
not fully reflected in the State party’s legislation and administrative and judicial decisions, as
well as in policies and programmes relevant to children.