CRC/C/DZA/CO/3-4
64.
The Committee recommends that the State party strengthen its efforts to
eliminate illiteracy, to promote girl’s education and to develop pre-school education.
The Committee also urges the State party:
(a)
To take as a matter of priority all necessary measures to ensure that
children living in the most disadvantaged Wilayas enjoy their right to education and
that education is effectively free for all children in the State party without hidden
costs;
(b)
To improve the quality of education and take all measures to ensure that
children complete their schooling, including concrete action to address the reasons
behind failure to complete schooling;
(c)
To provide all teachers with adequate salaries and status, expand
teacher-training capacities and ensure that all teachers undergo continuous and
intensive in-service training and periodic evaluation training;
(d)
To expand the system of vocational training institutions and make sure
that children who have dropped out of school also have access to it;
(e)
To develop non-stereotyped educational curricula that address
structural causes of discrimination against women and enhance educational
opportunities and achievement for girls and boys at all levels;
(f)
To ensure that Berber languages are effectively taught in the State
party’s schools as guaranteed by the Education Act (Act No. 08–04); and
(g)
To take into account its general comment No. 1 on the aims of education
(CRC/GC/2001/1).
G.
Special protection measures (arts. 22, 30, 38, 39, 40, 37 (b)-(d) and 32-36
of the Convention)
Asylum-seeking and refugee children
65.
The Committee is concerned that there is no comprehensive legal framework for
refugees and asylum seekers in the State party and that the Bureau Algérien pour les
Réfugiés et les Apatrides (BAPRA) created within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs does not
have the executive capacity to address the situation of asylum seekers and refugees. The
Committee is also concerned that:
(a)
Asylum seekers and refugee children, including those recognized by the
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) are generally
considered and treated as illegal migrants, and face arrest, detention and occasionally
expulsion;
(b)
The State party does not provide free legal aid, the assistance of a guardian,
protection, psychological and medical support and shelter to unaccompanied minors and
child victims of gender-based violence;
(c)
Sub-Saharan child asylum seekers and refugees lack birth certificates and are
denied most of their economic, social and cultural rights, especially their right to health,
and education; and
(d)
The UNHCR has still not been able to conduct proper registration of Sahrawi
refugees who still live in precarious conditions in the Tindouf province under the
administration of the Polisario Front and has not been granted access to detention centres
where migrants deemed “irregular”, including children are held.
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