It is hard to believe that in 2016 in a European country, a government could propose a new law that would make child marriage legal, and also protect rapists from being punished by the law as long as they marry their victim. But that is exactly what is happening in Turkey. The new bill was approved on Thursday and is scheduled to undergo a final vote on Tuesday. If it passes, it will take away the punishment for sexual assault if there is no force or if the victim and perpetrator are married. This would include girls under the age of 18. So how could sexual assault without force be criminalized, and how could sexual violence in marriages be punished? Put simply: they likely couldn’t be.

WTF Turkey with this project of law to decriminalize rape if it ends in a marriage??? “rape legalization”, that’s the true meaning of it…

— mandubianhotep (@mandubian) November 21, 2016

If a man rapes a girl, he can escape punishment by agreeing to rape her for the rest of her life. #Islam #Turkey https://t.co/CrLGhzXM46

— Anne Marie Waters (@AMDWaters) November 19, 2016

Over the weekend, thousands of people took to the streets to protest the proposed law, carrying signs that read “Punish the rapist, not the child,” and “Rape cannot be pardoned.” According to reports even the daughter of Turkey’s President, whose party introduced the bill, protested it. “Pardoning the crime of sexual assault, or dropping it due to prescription, is out of the question. People who commit sexual assault and rape crimes cannot be cleared,” one protester said to the AP.

The government claims it didn’t create the bill to pardon rapists, but to solve some legal challenges in connection with the widespread custom of child marriage. According to Prime Minister Binali Yildrim, it would release men who were imprisoned after marrying underage girls in religious ceremonies. But critics say the law would pardon rape and basically take away the rights of women and children. Now some United Nations agencies, like UNICEF, are urging Turkey to not go ahead with the law, as it would work against the country’s ability to “combat sexual abuse and child marriages.” A spokesperson said that UNICEF is “deeply concerned,” and that “these abject forms of violence against children are crimes which should be punished as such.”

Motion to ‘protect child marriage’ in #Turkey draws criticism and claims of pardoning rape. #EndChildMarriage https://t.co/FIfDpo2Fkr pic.twitter.com/KFUNI04FY8

— Edward Herbert (@ed_herbert) November 21, 2016

Turkey has one of the highest rates of child marriage in Europe, especially in more rural areas. The changes would apply to cases between 2005 and November 16 of this year.

Emma Von Zeipel

Emma Von Zeipel is a staff writer at Law Street Media. She is originally from one of the islands of Stockholm, Sweden. After working for Democratic Voice of Burma in Thailand, she ended up in New York City. She has a BA in journalism from Stockholm University and is passionate about human rights, good books, horses, and European chocolate. Contact Emma at EVonZeipel@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Despite growing political pressure, both Israel and Hamas avoided the United Nations’ annual report on Children and Armed Conflict. The report lists countries with a record of children’s rights violations.

The U.N. Secretary-General’s office for Children and Armed Conflict reviews ongoing conflicts to determine whether children’s rights violations occurred. In addition to a summary of active conflicts, the report also includes two annexes, or the so-called “list of shame.” The U.N. calls upon all listed parties to end and take measures to prevent future crimes against children in order to be taken off the list. The report focuses on violations of six specific children’s rights, including the recruitment of children as soldiers, the killing and maiming of children, sexual violence against children, attacks on schools and hospitals, abduction of children, and the denial of humanitarian access.

Although Hamas and Israel are not listed in the annexes of the most recent report, it does designate four pages to discussing the 2014 Gaza conflict. A total of 561 children in Israel and Palestine were killed, 557 of which were Palestinian. U.N. estimates also indicate that at least 1,000 of the 2,955 Palestinian children who were injured will be permanently disabled. Additionally, at least 262 schools and 274 kindergartens in Gaza were affected last summer due to Israeli airstrikes. The death toll in the Gaza conflict even surpassed the number of minors confirmed killed in Syria last year. Palestine had the third highest number of child deaths among all conflicts in 2014, and the highest number of damaged or destroyed schools.

Although the number of recorded abuses against children rose significantly, the Secretary-General decided to let Israel and Hamas off the hook. The list remains unchanged from the previous year despite what Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon calls “grave violations suffered by children as a result of Israeli military operations in 2014.”

Unnamed U.N. officials told the Associated Press that initial recommendations for the list, which circulated internally within the United Nations, included both Hamas and Israel. But due to disagreements among people on the ground, neither group was included in the final version of the report.

Placing Israel on the annual report could have a meaningful effect on the country. Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen have all signed action plans to prevent future violations. According to the Office of Children and Armed Conflict, these actions plans “outline concrete, time bound steps that lead to compliance with international law.” As of this year, 23 parties have signed action plans–11 governments and 12 non-state groups–nine of which have fully complied with their action plans and are no longer on the list.

Human Rights Watch has been one of the strongest proponents of including Israel and Hamas in the report’s annexes. Prior to the report’s release, Philippe Bolopion, the organization’s Crisis Advocacy Director, sent a letter to Ki-Moon urging him to include Israel, Hamas, and several other armed groups engaged in conflicts. Bolopion reinforced that point last month saying,

Applying consistent standards would add some long-time abusive parties to the list, including Israel and Hamas, for their wartime conduct harming children… Failure to include countries and groups that are known offenders will harm a report that’s been a powerful tool to protect children in war.

Since its creation in 2005, the Office for Children and Armed Conflict has monitored both Israel and Palestine. While previous reports document violations by these groups, they have both consistently avoided the report’s annexes. In his letter, Bolopion emphasizes, “other parties to armed conflict have been listed in your annexes in the past for less serious violations.”

The U.N. missed an important opportunity when it excluded both groups from the list. In the event of future conflicts, there are few measures in place to protect the lives and rights of children who are caught in the middle of the conflict. While the violence between Israel and Hamas might seem impossible to end, further international scrutiny may be help ensure that children’s most basic human rights are preserved in the future.

Alissa Gutierrez

Alissa is a member of the Catholic University Class of 2018 and was Law Street Media Fellow for the Summer of 2015. Contact Alissa at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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Let us examine a scenario; parents go to a hospital to treat their child’s cancer and after seeing the debilitating effects of chemotherapy, opt to end the treatment. The hospital, however, sees the child’s cancer as curable and uses the court system to attempt to force their patient to continue treatment. Which party has the law on their side, the parents of the child or the hospital?

This seemingly hypothetical situation has become a real debate between an Amish couple in Ohio and the Akron Children’s Hospital. Parents, Andy and Anna Hershberger, have decided to stop the chemotherapy treatments of their 10 year old daughter, Sarah, who is battling Leukemia. The couple originally consented to the chemotherapy of Sarah in May 2013 but put an end to the treatment in June 2013. The parents saw the effects of the treatment as more harmful than helpful and opted to use natural herbs and vitamins rather than radiation to rid the girl’s body of the cancer.

While it is the belief of Mr. and Mrs. Hershberger that chemotherapy was actually killing their daughter, it is the moral and legal obligation of the hospital to make sure that the young girl received proper care. As explained by Robert McGregor, Akron’s chief medical officer, the hospital believes that the girl will die without the chemotherapy treatment. “We really have to advocate for what we believe is in the best interest of the child,” explained McGregor.

This is where the law stepped in, as the hospital went to court in order to force Sarah’s continued chemotherapy treatment. Judges appointed an unaffiliated third party, or “court guardian” to the case, Maria Schimer who is an attorney as well as registered nurse. Along with guardianship came Maria’s power to make all medical decisions regarding Sarah’s continued treatment. With this decision, the Amish family went into hiding about four months ago and has refused to reappear until the guardian is removed. Maria Schimer recently requested to be dropped from this case as she can no longer reach Sarah and her family.

The Hershbergers are currently fighting to obtain the right to make health care decisions for Sarah after the legal guardian is formally removed from the case. These parents are appealing the decision that allowed Maria Schimer to step in and make medical decisions for their daughter in the first place. The couple feels that assigning this guardian has infringed upon their constitutional rights and are appealing under the Ohio Health Care Freedom Amendment, approved in 2011. This amendment prohibits laws that force Ohioans to, “participate in a health care system.” This appeal is the first time that the court has been forced to determine the scope of this amendment, which has previously been seen as a symbol against President Obama’s health care overhaul.

The representing attorney to the Hershberger’s, Maurice Thompson of the libertarian 1851 Center for Constitutional Law in Ohio also helped draft the Ohio Health Care Freedom Amendment. Thompson feels that this case is a significant issue under said amendment because the Ohio Health Care Freedom Amendment is in place to preserve the rights of parents and children to choose their health care free of compulsion and prevent forced health care. “Allowing an uninterested third-party, one that has never even met the family or the child, to assert an interest in an exceedingly important parental decision will completely undermine the parent-child relationship,” argues Thompson.

Though the case of the Hershberger family has not yet been decided, it is most likely going to face multiple challenges. This stems from the fact that though the Ohio Health Care Freedom Ammendment was approved, it did not prevent the implementation of the Obama’s new federal health care law. This is because a state amendment does not have the ability to nullify a law. This situation could harm Ohio’s ability to enforce its specific laws and amendments to a case such as this. It is also questionable as to whether this amendment can extend to the point of protecting the Hershberger family’s case, which will be up to the court system as they decide on the full scope of the amendment.

The bigger picture of this case becomes, is it the right of the parents or the right of the hospital to determine the medical future of a child? While the Akron Hospital, versus the Hershberger family case is one of the most recent, there are other similar situations in which parents have lost the custody of their ill children to decisions made by the hospitals treating them. Fifteen year old Justina Pelletier was taken from her parents and placed into the custody of Boston Children’s Hospital in February 2013. This event occurred due to a dispute between Justina’s parents and the hospital, when her diagnosis changed from a mitochondrial disorder to a mental illness. After the change in diagnosis, the Pelletier family threatened to withdraw their daughter from the hospital in order to seek a second medical opinion. Once a child is labeled with a mental disorder, it is within the hospital’s power to call child protective services. In this case DCF labeled the parents behavior as insolent and abusive. The parents were stripped of their custody and the state of Massachusetts forcibly been treating as well as detaining Justina since that time. Based on the current ruling, it looks as if Justina will not be fully released until she is 18 years old.These two extreme cases can seem terrifying in the eyes of parents, and rightfully so. It seems that the hospitals often have the final say in the treatment of child patients rather than the parents.

While both sides of this scenario, the hospitals and the parents, seem to be looking to protect the child’s best interests, it becomes hard to draw a line between who is correct in their judgements. If parents are fully informed about treatment options as well as their risks and decide that the risks do outweigh the benefits, it should be within their ability to opt out of treatment as the child’s legal guardians from birth. However, this becomes complicated with the consideration of some parental religious beliefs that could bar the child from receiving potentially life saving treatment. On one hand, due to custody under the hospital or a third party guardian, a life can be saved, but on the other religious beliefs may be compromised. This medical debate does not have an all encompassing answer.

At what point, does it become ok to take over the custody of a child without the consent of their parents, or is it ever ok? To each his own, what is your opinion?

[The News- Herald] [Fox News] [Police State USA]

—

Taylor Garre (@TaylorLynn013)

Featured image courtesy of [Randall Pugh via Flickr]

Taylor Garre

Taylor Garre is a student at Fordham University and formerly an intern at Law Street Media. Contact Taylor at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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