CRC/C/15/Add.225
page 8
40.
The Committee encourages the State party to adopt specific legislation and take
other measures to prevent violence against children in all circumstances, including
corporal punishment. It also recommends that the State party strengthen programmes for
the recovery and reintegration of abused children and establish adequate procedures and
mechanisms to receive complaints and to monitor, investigate and prosecute cases of
ill-treatment. The Committee urges the State party to ensure that all people working
with children, such as teachers and care personnel, are made responsible for reporting
cases of abuse and neglect. The Committee recommends that the State party launch
awareness-raising campaigns on the negative consequences of ill-treatment of children and
promote positive, non-violent forms of discipline as an alternative to corporal punishment,
especially in the family, schools and other institutions and ensure that all people working
with children, including law enforcement officials, judges and health professionals,
undergo training in how to identify, report and manage cases of ill-treatment.
Recovery of maintenance for the child
41.
While domestic legislation includes provisions on maintenance allowance, and stipulates
that persistent refusal by parents to pay court-ordered maintenance payments for their children is
a criminal offence, the Committee is concerned at the lack of implementation of these
provisions, partly due to widespread ignorance of the law.
42.
The Committee recommends that the State party:
(a)
Make widely known the provisions of domestic legislation concerning
maintenance allowance and assist mothers, where necessary, in undertaking legal action;
(b)
Ensure that professional groups dealing with this issue are adequately
trained and the courts enforce more strictly the recovery of maintenance from solvent
parents who refuse to pay;
(c)
Take necessary measures to ensure that financial assistance is provided to
children born out of wedlock and children of single-parent families in cases where maintenance
cannot be obtained from solvent parents.
6. Basic health and welfare
Children with disabilities
43.
The Committee remains concerned at the prevailing poor situation of children with
disabilities, who are often institutionalized. Furthermore, while noting the measures taken to
enable children with disabilities to receive instruction within regular schools, the Committee
regrets that access by children with disabilities to mainstream and special education remains
limited.
44.
Reiterating its previous recommendations, and in light of the Standard Rules on
the Equalization of Opportunities for Persons with Disabilities (General Assembly
resolution 48/96) and the recommendations adopted by the Committee at its day of general
discussion on the rights of children with disabilities (CRC/C/69, paras. 310-339), the
Committee encourages the State party to make greater efforts to implement alternatives to