The panel ‘Count children to make them count: Filling the data gap’, part of a UN Human Rights Council session held 25 June 2019 in Geneva, focused on data collection in the context of the UN Global Study on children deprived of liberty — reflections both on data that has been collected and on what remains to be revealed. Children of Prisoners Europe (COPE) was honoured to receive an invitation from Defence for Children International and the Austrian mission in Genevato present on current data concerning children living with a parent in prison in Europe, as well as to discuss the need to support children with imprisoned parents more broadly. Panelists included Prof. Manfred Nowak, Independent Expert for the Global Study on Children Deprived Liberty; Prof. Ann Skelton, Member of the Committee on the Rights of the Child; Karen Van Laethem, President of the Belgian National Commission on the Rights of the Child, Brianna Smith, Children of Prisoners Europe. The Panel was moderated by Anna Tomasi, UN OHCHR.
Manfred Nowak, an independent expert for and lead author of the UN Global Study, summarised the data contributions that the Global Study has received. As part of its own data collection campaign, the Global Study disseminated a questionnaire to UN member countries, to which there were 112 replies from 82 countries: half from Europe, 27 from Africa, 20 from Asia, 19 from North, South and Latin America and 5 from Oceania. NGOs also contributed to the study, totalling 170 participating organisations.
The data supplied in these questionnaire responses can lead to a number of conclusions. The number of children deprived of liberty on the whole was reduced, as a result of the recent developments in many countries of specific child justice systems. Many of these children—and more often girls than boys—would have formerly been institutionalised, but are instead diverted into the child welfare system. The data also showed new trends in the de-institutionalisation process, thanks in part to the UN Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children, resolved by the General Assembly in February 2010. Many states, especially formerly communist states with a very high number of institutionalised children, have reported that these numbers have reduced by 50%. This also means there are fewer children deprived of liberty.
Mr Nowak was concrete in his assessment of this data: that the data is reliable, whether collected through questionnaire or consultation, but very much on the conservative side; much of what was collected had to be supplemented by government data and NGOs research, as well as contributions of extrapolated data from statisticians. Challenges to data collection, particularly the challenge of encouraging participation, remain an obstacle to understanding the global context; only about one-third of UN member states replied at all, and many responses were incomplete. The most thorough data that resulted from this survey came in answers about the administration of justice, where questions saw a 72 per cent response rate. Questions about children and babies in places of detention with their parents received a 59 per cent response rate; those regarding institutionalised children received a 47 per cent response rate.