At the 42^nd session of the Human Rights Council, QUNO welcomed several discussions and documents which incorporated a focus on children of parents incarcerated parents, and children of parents sentenced to death or executed. We delivered an oral statement on the rights of children of parents sentenced to death or executed.

The statement urged those States which do retain the death penalty to put an end to the abuses faced by these children, and also drew attention to the theme of this year’s World Day Against the Death Penalty, which is Children: Unseen Victims of the Death Penalty. The statement, delivered by Programme Assistant for Human Rights and Refugees, Lucy Halton, can be listened to online here at 02:13:16 (Chapter 56) and read here.   

We were pleased to see the adoption of the resolution on the death penalty. The resolution focuses on the protection and promotion of human rights in the application of the death penalty, which while concentrating on the protection and promotion of human rights in the application of the death penalty also welcomes the trend towards abolition.  

Two reports on the death penalty were presented at this session of the Council, both of which acknowledge the impact it has on the rights of children of those sentenced to death or executed: a report on June’s high-level panel on the question of the death penalty can be read here, and the yearly supplement to the Secretary General’s quinquennial report on capital punishment can be found here under item A/HRC/42/28.

A resolution on technical capacity building and cooperation in the field of human rights adopted by the Council at this session focusses on the treatment of prisoners, including through the implementation of the Bangkok Rules on the Treatment of Women Prisoners and the Nelson Mandela Rules on the Treatment of Prisoners. The resolution recognises the need for States to pay special attention to the impacts of parental imprisonment on children, calling for best interests assessments to be undertaken. QUNO welcomes the inclusion of the rights of these children in this resolution and looks forward to seeing how the report and Panel mandated by this resolution can further implementation of their rights. Additionally, QUNO welcomes a report by the High Commissioner for Human Rights on Human Rights in the Administration of Justice which includes discussion of the rights of children deprived of their liberty, a group which includes children detained with a parent. QUNO also welcomes the report’s references to visits.