GROUP of Ngos WORKING with CHILDREN

Republic of Guinea - Bissau

GROUP OF NGOs WORKING WITH CHILDREN

Al-Ansar, ALTERNAG, AMIC, ANDES, ANAPRODEM, CNJ,

Forum Nacional da Juventude e Populaçao,

REJACA, REJE, RENAJE, Sinim Mira Nasseque

ALTERNATIVE REPORT ON THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THE CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS ON THE CHILD IN GUINEA-BISSAU

B I S S A U JULHO 2001

Republic of Guinea-Bissau

NGO Alternative Report on the Implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Guinea-Bissau

CONTENTS

1. Preamble

1. Introduction

1. General Measures of Implementation

1. Definition of the Child

1. General Principles

1. Civil Rights and Freedoms

1. Family Environment and Alternative Care

1. Basic Health and Welfare

1. Education, Leisure and Cultural Activities

1. Special Protection Measures

1. Conclusions, Prospects and Recommendations

1. List of NGOs co-producing the Alternative Report

1. List of Documents Consulted

1. Preamble

Guinea-Bissau is a country in West Africa, 36,125 square km, south of Senegal and north of the Republic of Guinea (Conakry), facing the Atlantic Ocean to the west.

The present population, according to 1991 census projections, is 1,200,000 with a growth rate of 2.2%.

The mortality rate is very high and the state of health infrastructures precarious.

Social indicators point to a country on the threshold of poverty.

Health and nutritional indicators are below the average for sub-Saharan Africa. In 1996, maternal mortality was around 7% per 1,000 live births. The infant mortality rate is 145 per thousand: live births: in urban areas 100-120 per thousand and in rural areas 150-175 per thousand. The principal causes of mortality are: malaria (responsible for 35% of deaths), followed by diarrhoeal diseases (15%) and acute respiratory infections (15%). While it is endemic, malaria accounts for 50% of medical consultations in all regions and age groups. It is the disease which bears the highest social costs, with heavy repercussions not only on mortality rates but also absenteeism and productivity.

Besides malaria, diarrhoeal and respiratory diseases, the diseases that affect the population most are complications related to pregnancy and childbirth, sexually transmitted diseases, AIDS, measles and tubercolosis.

Immunisation coverage has increased due to the Enlarged Programme of Immunisation, but much more needs to be done. According to data in 1994, 93% of under-twos were immunised against BCG, 45% against DPT3, 45% against polio and 46% against measles.

Access to medicine in quantity and quality is an important public health problem. The increase in the number of illegal vending outlets for pharmeceutical products from parallel circuits is a delicate problem. The weak coverage of the authorised pharmeceutical distribution network and the low and attractive prices offered by the parallel circuits make the problem even more complex.

There is 68% safe water coverage in rural areas. However, this coverage is inconsistent. The Bijagós archipelago has the lowest rural coverage.

The level of literacy is more or less 20% (projections). Adult illiteracy is 70%: males around 50% and females 83%. Before the war, overall primary school enrolment was 61%, school equipment remained insufficient and of variable quality. The rural population’s access to education remained very low.

The document “National Strategy for the Reduction of Poverty” (“Estratégia Nacional Para a Redução da Pobreza”) (September 2000), in Points II.B-25 and 26, is an x-ray of the education sector and is quoted below because of its importance:

-In the initial years following national independence, the education system underwent an unprecedented expansion, but numbers began to drop soon afterwards. In the Nineties, thanks to an improved economic performance and Government intervention, as well as the private sector and NGOs, the school population was once more positive. Overall primary school enrolment went up from 42% in 1993 to 61% in 1998. However, this development in the school population masks high rates of exclusion of female children and youth, and serious regional imbalances. The overall school enrolment for girls during the same period went from 32% to 46%, while for boys it went up from 55% to 75%. Insufficient access to education is mainly the result of the low level of education and inadequate distribution of supply and, marginally, of weak demand by some groups of the rural population. In fact, 10% of rural schools only offer first grade and 23% only first and second grades.

-The approximately 20% repeaters and 18% school drop-out rate in 1998 attest to the internal inefficiency and low productivity of primary school education. In 1999, secondary school education supply was limited to 17 public and 10 private establishments, totalling some 26,000 pupils, 6% of the eligible age group, against an average of 18% in sub-Saharan Africa. There is hardly any vocational education. The numbers have stagnated in part due to weak diversity and relevance of the training offered, which has not kept up with trends in the labour market. There are four training centres presently in the whole country. There is hardly any pre-school education. There are only some 50 establishments in the main urban and semi-urban centres catering for 5,000 children, just above 1% of the respective age group. Adult illiteracy is 70%, while female illiteracy is 83%. There are three post-secondary school training centres offering degree courses in medicine, law and secondary school teacher training. All of them face serious financial and management problems and lack the conditions for sustainability. The quality of education is directly correlated to the qualification of the teachers, the relevance of the curricula in relation to the economic, social and cultural milieu, teaching manuals and materials, methodology and insertion of the school in the community.

Guinea-Bissau has 33 ethnic groups grupos according to the census (Recenseamento Geral da População e da Habitação, MCEP, 1979). The major groups include the Balanta (27%), Fula (23%), Mandinga (12%), Manjaco (11%) and Papel (10%).

However, the official language is Portuguese (spoken by 11%), inherited from a long colonial presence which ended after a hard-fought war of independence em 1974. Crioulo (spoken by 44%) is for all purposes the country’s lingua franca.

Guinea-Bissau is an essentially agricultural country that since the Seventies has experienced effects characteristic of Sahelian countries.

The food shortage in 1980 was aggravated by growing financial difficulties linked to the constantly growing budgetary deficit and a permanent external payments imbalance.

In mid-1983, the National Bank of Guinea-Bissau used up its credit line totally.

The build-up of late external debt payments exceeded four years of exports. Imports were cut, officially commercialised agricultural products reached their lowest levels since the Fifties and development of the modern sector of the economy stagnated.

The GNP, which had gone down in real terms by 5% in 1983, was estimated at US$ 160 per capita in 1984, placing Guinea-Bissau among the poorest countries on the planet. In 1991 it was calculated at US$ 200 per capita and in 1998 this went down by 28%.

Food dependency is enormous, bearing in mind the archaic system of production and commercialisation due to a lack of distribution routes.

Although much less pronounced than in the countries of the region, the rural exodus is increasingly more significant (70% of the population still live in rural areas in worrying conditions of poverty).

The industrial tissue emerging after independence has disappeared or been privatised, leaving no visible results.

Despite its vast potential, fishing has contributed but ± 6% GNP. Mining resources have not been exploited due to a lack of infrastructure and capital.

Most recent data points to a considerable increase in exports (particularly cashew nuts) but nonetheless imports are still three times more.

The two political and military crises of 7 June 1998 and 22 November 2000 have compounded these problems.

We are seeing therefore a steep decline in the social condition of the citizen both in urban and rural areas. The majority of the population of Guinea-Bissau today live on the edge of poverty and no prospects on the horizon.

Consequently, the difficult situation of the population, and in which Guinea-Bissau’s children live, is worrying and rooted in its own economic context exacerbated by the political and military crises, migratory flows, new moral values, lifestyles and other external patterns of behaviour engendering deep social changes.

The principal causes of these changes are:

a)bad governance the country has been subject to since independence;

b)low buying power and shrinking budgets for social departments;

c)a reduced labour force in the countryside;

d)the introduction of consumer patterns that are incompatible with the income level of many families;

e)destabilisation of the traditional family caused by the destruction of values governing behaviour and regulating social relations;

f)the very situation of women, which is a determing factor in the life conditions of children;

g)lack of relevance and insufficient education and training (including civil education);

h)precarious conditions of medical assistance and medicines, and the inexistence of a policy of health prevention and education.

There have been various corrective attempts in Guinea-Bissau, ranging from privatisation of the economy as a factor of economic growth to the social and infrastructural action carried out in conjunction with UNICEF to reduce the negative impact of the Government’s Structural Adjustment Programme (1987) and even the efforts to promote community-based development through NGOs in an attempt to enhance the human dimension in development activities.

We do not wish to be fatalistic, but we are critical and apprehensive with regard to the future of children.

Because, despite the fact that Guinea-Bissau has signed the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, having held “Provincial and National Summits on the Child” and participated in the World Summit for Children (1990), the reality is that the situation has not improved a lot since the whole thrust of economic and social activity is still solely directed at increasing income per capita, forgetting that children are the greatest element of all long-term development.

1. Introduction

Guinea-Bissau is a country which inherited from its national liberation struggle against Portuguese colonialism a strong political tradition of child protection translated in the famous phrase of Amilcar Cabral, founder of the Guinean nation, and whom we quote:

• “Children are the flowers of our struggle and the main reason for our battle”.

Unfortunately, Guinea-Bissau has since independence undergone various political and military convulsions causing significant reverses in all areas of its economic, political, social and cultural life, reflecting negatively in the living conditions of children and implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Resolution 6/90 of 18 April 1989).

When the “World Summit for Children” was held in 1990, the only national associative organisation working directly in the area of children in Guinea-Bissau was AMIC (Associação dos Amigos das Crianças – Association of the Friends of Children), an organisation for the defence and protection of children, especially the least privileged.

AMIC came into being as a result of Guinea-Bissau’s participation in the “International Conference on the Child” held in Moscow in 1979 (the International Year of the Child).

It was from the “International Year of the Child” that Guinean civil society became aware of the magnitude and implications of the “Universal Declaration of the Rights of the Child” and the “Global Movement for Children”.

From 1984 to 1990 activities consisted of “Awareness and Information Campaigns on the Situation of the Child in Guinea-Bissau” and some specific or emergency support for orphaned or underprivileged children.

The components “Development, Promotion and Dissemination of the Rights of the Child” appeared with political and economic liberalisation, and the explosion of national NGOs in the most varied areas of political, social and economic life.

All the emerging NGOs, although not directly engaged in child-based activities, had as their main objective “Promoting Community-Based Development”, “Protecting the Environment” and “Promoting Human Rights”, which is the same thing as saying “Contributing to the Development of Communities and Protecting the Environment and Citizen”.

Theoretically, improving the living conditions of the community improves the living conditions of the family, which is the nucleus of the community, and therefore the child in the family will see its situation improved.

It is from the “World Summit for Children” held in 1990 that the whole of Guinean society (State and Civil Society) acquired a real awareness of the vulnerability of children and the need to implement actions in favour of their development and defence of their most vital and basic interests.

Parallel to this, the issue “Women” began to gain strength in all its facets in terms of political, social or economic participation and sharing.

These two movements ended up by fusing and merging in Guinea-Bissau since the woman is the first (if not only) person responsible for food, health, education and clothing of a child.

This is why we see the issue “Women and Children” being broached today by a sole State institution (Instituto da Mulher e da Criança – the Institute of Women and Children) and nearly all NGOs directly or indirectly include this dimension with particular emphasis in their programmes and activities.

The main strategic partners of the national NGOs in the area of children in Guinea-Bissau are the State, Radda Barnen (Save the Children Sweden), Plan International and UNICEF.

The NGOs have developed participative partnerships with the communities, where interests and responsibilities are shared in order to facilitate activities and actions and make them sustainable.

The main obstacle still lies in the fact that there is resistance and suspicion on the part of the “STATE” in collaborating and supporting, also in a participative and sustained manner, the activities and actions initiated by the NGOs.

Although there has been a certain evolution with regard to recognising the role and importance of the NGOs, much work still needs to be done with regard to “CONFIDENCE”.

Since the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by Guinea-Bissau on 20 August 1990, there have been various actions and contributions by different actors, particularly in civil society, for the protection, welfare and development of the child.

In September 1997, seven years after the ratification of the convention, the Government produced a document called “Report on the Applicability of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Guinea-Bissau”.

Owing to successive delays and the war that devastated the country from 7 June 1998 to 7 May 1999, this report was only sent to the Committee on the Rights of the Child after this period.

The Convention is the only international treaty on human rights which expressly gives the NGOs a monitoring role. To this end, the Committee on the Rights of the Child encourages NGOs to present reports, documentation and information contributing to giving a more precise idea of the application of the Convention in each country.

The present alternative report has been produced by the Guinean NGOs and Associations that have developed a range of activities aimed at improving the living conditions of children.

The objective is to specifically and as realistically as possible describe the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child since its ratification by Guinea-Bissau and complement the Government’s report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

1. General Measures of Implementation (art. 4, 42, e 44.6)

Since the ratification of the Convention on the Rights of the Child only some specific measures have been taken to harmonise Guinean legislation with the Convention. The major part of the existing legislation dates back to the colonial period, which as is known, was discriminatory in terms of fundamental and civil rights for the indigenous populations.

Although our legislation allows recourse to international conventions ratified by the Guinean State, in practice its application is more often than not confused and conflicting, since there are no specialised judicial fora, legal diplomas or qualified personnel in this specific area (e.g. there is no juvenile court, no social workers to support and accompany minors with legal problems, there has been no change in Guinean legislation with a view to giving a “legal form” to the principles conveyed in the Convention).

To date there is no official translation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and therefore it has not been published in the Official Gazette.

Various Conventions signed by Guinea-Bissau (Forbidding the Worst Forms of Child Labour, Creating a TPI) and additional protocols on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (Status of Children ‘During Armed Conflict, Trafficking, Prostitution and Child Pornography) have not yet been ratified. Only the convention on Anti-Personnel Mines has been ratified and published in the Official Gazette.

Apparently and even theoretically, our legislation protects the fundamental rights of the child enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child, but in practice we helplessly see the systematic violation of these same rights (particularly of girls) without justice done due to legal and practical incompatabilities (e.g. with traditional customs and practices) and the passivity of the authorities themselves who should react and take on child protection.