'No voice': Protecting children's rights in the Pacific

More action is needed to stop the rights of children in the Pacific being violated, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child chair Ann Marie Skelton says.

More action is needed to stop the rights of children in the Pacific being violated, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child chair Ann Marie Skelton says.

Last week, child rights stakeholders from around the Pacific met in Apia and said child abuse is not the Pacific way.

The climate crisis was front and centre at the meeting, with concerns children across the Pacific are being denied the human right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.

Children who spoke at the meeting raised their concerns directly with the adults in the room.

"I believe that too many times the children have no voice," nine-year-old Monica Lesa said.

"I believe children should have an education so they will know more about the world and how to protect the planet."

For 11-year-old Semisi Boomy loane, "children are affected by climate change and children are demanding action".

"We, children, must be free from abuse and must be treated equally and all of our rights are equally important."

"Puipui lo ta siosiomaga (protect our environment)," he said.

The UN has added environmental rights and climate change to its children's rights convention, something Lesa said was a start but more action is needed.

"The air I breathe is not clean. It's so hot, I can barely breathe," Monica said.

"The trees are being cut and animals, birds and insects are losing their homes.

"The beautiful flowers and decorations of the world, of the earth are dying."

When questioned on why Pacific states need to do better when it was bigger emitters causing the most harm, Skelton said "everyone has a responsibility".

However, she said some states had bigger responsibilities than others.

"Because they have a bigger carbon footprint, they've got more to answer for, and they have more resources," Skelton said.

Taking responsibility starts with nations getting on board with change, she said.

"All the states in the world have ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child except the United States of America, which, of course, is also a very big emitter," she said.

The committee chair said the talking points at this children's rights workshop lead into COP28, where she encouraged adults to keep Pacific children front and centre at.

Violence 'epidemic'

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court of Samoa Judge Vui Clarence Nelson said violence directed at children was a major issue.

"Violence against children in the Pacific is at epidemic proportions, in my view, there is far too much of it," he stated.

"It has been going on for far too long and the situation really needs to change."

He said government's need to make changes and so does the general public.

"As a sitting judge of the Samoa courts, I can testify to the fact that the number of cases involving violence against children increases every year.

"And that the severity of what adults are doing to children is mind blowing. It's staggering.

"I find it sometimes incomprehensible that an adult would do something like this to a baby," he said.

But it is not just Samoa where violence is an issue, a Tuvalu government official Lilitasi Letasi said corporal punishment is rampant there.

"With corporal punishment in the home and community, it's widespread, and there's a big resistance to change from the people of Tuvalu," Letasi said.

"There's a widespread resistance to children's rights, based on customs and traditions of the country."

Delegations from Tuvalu, Cook Islands and Federated States of Micronesia presented to the Committee.

The CRC Committee continues to call on governments across the Pacific to change the minimum age of criminal responsibility to at least 14-years-old.

At the moment a ten-year-old child can be charged in Tuvalu, Letasi said.

Judge Nelson said most Pacific nations have their minimum age set at 10.

In Tonga, and Papua New Guinea children as young as seven can be charged.

He said the age 14 is internationally recognised as more reasonable.

And then there's the issue of child marriage, another matter Judge Nelson said needs addressing, with calls for the legal age of marriage to be 18 across the board.

"These things are not easy to achieve overnight to implement these kinds of big structural...changes," Judge Nelson, a former member of the CRC Committee, said.