Summary Records - CRC - Mali - CRC/C/SR.570 (1999)

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GENERAL

CRC/C/SR.570
9 November 1999

ENGLISH
Original: FRENCH

Summary record of the 570th meeting : Mali. 09/11/99.

CRC/C/SR.570. (Summary Record)

Convention Abbreviation: CRC

COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD

Twenty-second session

SUMMARY RECORD OF THE 570th MEETING

Held at the Palais des Nations, Geneva,
on Tuesday, 28 September 1999, at 10 a.m.

Chairperson: Mrs. MBOI

CONTENTS

CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS OF STATES PARTIES (continued)

Initial report of Mali

This record is subject to correction.

Corrections should be submitted in one of the working languages. They should be set forth in a memorandum and also incorporated in a copy of the record. They should be sent within one week of the date of this document to the Official Records Editing Section, room E.4108, Palais des Nations, Geneva.

Any corrections to the records of the public meetings of the Committee at this session will be consolidated in a single corrigendum, to be issued shortly after the end of the session.

The meeting was called to order at 10.05 a.m.

CONSIDERATION OF REPORTS OF STATES PARTIES (agenda item 4) (continued)

Initial report of Mali

1. At the invitation of the Chairperson, Mrs. Thiero, Mr. Mohamed Maiga, Mr. Ballo, Mr. Bonaventure Maiga, Mr. Traore and Mr. Koita (Mali) took places at the Committee table.

2. Mrs. THIERO (Mali) said that Mali had been one of the first States to ratify the Convention, which had come into force in the country on 20 October 1990. Mali had co-chaired the World Summit for Children, held in September 1990, and had been one of the six States designated in 1999 to monitor follow-up until 2001.

3. The National Assembly of Mali had entered a reservation to article 16 of the Convention, on the grounds that that article was incompatible with the Family Relations Code, but a process paving the way for a withdrawal of the reservation was under way and a decision would be taken in the near future.

4. The presentation of Mali's initial report had been delayed by events which had marked the social and political life of the country during the 1991-1995 period, when the institutions of the Third Republic were being set up. The initial report and the draft periodic report prepared in 1998 had been drawn up in four stages: appointment of a small drafting committee including a representative of the Malian Coalition for the Rights of the Child (COMADE); meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Monitoring Commission; meeting to approve the initial report, attended by ministerial departments, representatives of associations and NGOs active in the field of child welfare; and meeting of the Inter-Ministerial Commission prior to the adoption of the report by the Council of Ministers.

5. One of the major factors mentioned in the initial report had been the drafting and implementation of the National Plan of Action on the Survival, Development and Protection of Children (1992-2000), adopted in 1991. Under the Plan, during the time span covered by it, a debate was to be held on policies to promote the rights of the child, a matter regarded as a national priority. Furthermore, civil society was beginning to found organizations to protect and further the rights of the child; consequently, more than 1,000 associations and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were active in the sector of social development and assistance to children and families. The targets of the National Plan of Action had not, however, been evaluated or updated and the monitoring machinery and apparatus set up for that purpose had not functioned perfectly, since the activities carried out by the State and its partners had not always been coordinated. That was what had prompted the authorities of the Third Republic to found institutions and devise policies and programmes to deal with the specific obstacles facing children, women and families. In that connection, special mention had to be made of the setting up in September 1997 of the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family (which she headed) and of its regional and local offices, together with the Inter-Ministerial Commission, the Joint Government-NGO Commission and the Forum for Democratic Discussion (EID). The Ministry was responsible inter alia for monitoring the implementation of the Convention.

6. Since 1996, some innovations had been introduced, including an analysis of the situation of women and children in accordance with the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, which in practice had been translated into the programme of cooperation between Mali and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)(1998-2000); the current reform of family law; the Ten-Year Programme for the Development of Education; the Ten-Year Sanitation and Social Development Plan; and the Ten-Year Programme for the Development of Justice. All those programmes formed part of the campaign to alleviate poverty and social exclusion, that being the main goal which the President of the Republic, Mr. Konaré, had set himself for his second term of office. The main thrust of the Government's strategy to help the poor, which had been presented to the country's technical and financial partners at the Round Table on Mali convened in Geneva in September 1998, was to: enhance the economic, legal, social and cultural environment; promote income-generating activities and self-employment; facilitate access to financial services and other factors of production; boost the performance of and expand the agro-foodstuffs sector; facilitate access to education and training; supply basic health services, food resources, drinking water and sanitation; improve housing conditions; and efficiently coordinate poverty alleviation strategies.

7. Between 1993 and 1998, Mali had devoted 13 per cent of its budget to essential social services, a figure below the 20 per cent recommended at the World Summit for Social Development, held in Copenhagen in March 1995. The reason was that Mali was still one of the poorest, most heavily indebted countries in the world, but if it were to be included in the list of countries which would be granted a debt remission by the end of 1999, it could allocate more resources to basic social services.

8. Within the framework of special measures to protect children, priority had gone to action in the field of juvenile justice, initiatives to prevent the trafficking in and unsupervised adoption of children, violence against children, child labour and the exploitation of children. Moreover, the Government and its partners were especially committed to steps to halt intolerable forms of child labour, the transfrontier trafficking in children and excision.

9. In 1998, Mali had ratified the Convention on the Prohibition of the Use, Stockpiling, Production and Transfer of Anti-Personnel Mines and Their Destruction and had recently convinced the Economic Community of West African States to accept the moratorium on the import, export and manufacture of light weapons.

10. In addition, the Government has supported the creation of a children's parliament and the building of a children's city, where the seat of the parliament was located. In coming years, it intended to focus on social mobilization, education and the training of persons who looked after children. A large-scale programme of peace studies would be introduced in schools and in social and political circles with the assistance of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) and other United Nations agencies.

11. Lastly, she wished to thank UNICEF's office in Mali, both personally and on behalf of the Government, for its unwavering support for the Government's action.

12. Mrs. OUEDRAOGO said that, on the whole, the drafters of the report had followed the Committee's guidelines and she appreciated the efforts made to adhere to the recommended layout. She noted that the information supplied had been corroborated by other sources.

13. Nevertheless, she regretted that when the Government had drawn attention to the challenges ahead, it had not mentioned the worrying issue of child domestics. Similarly, frequent reference had been made to the legislative context, whereas it would have been preferable to provide a general picture of the implementation and efficacity of laws. She regretted the absence of information about programmes and proposals designed to improve the implementation of the Convention and wondered to what extent it had been possible to give effect to those proposals in Mali's current economic circumstances. As the statistics shown in the report did not give an overview of the situation of children, she requested clarification in that respect.

14. She was pleased that Mali was thinking about withdrawing its reservation to article 16, a move which would be hailed by the Committee. How much consideration was given to the rights of the child in the Forum for Democratic Discussion referred to in paragraph 45 of core document HRI/CORE/1/Add.87? Could children put questions to members of the Government there? What arrangements had been made for children to have contacts with the Higher Council on Communication and the Committee for Equal Access to the Media? Had the Code of General Social Protection incorporating the draft Code on the Well-Being of Children and referred to in the written answers, been adopted? She asked for fuller information about one of the responsibilities of the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family, namely the provision of regional services, especially in the form of financial and human resources. With regard to the monitoring and implementation of the National Plan of Action, she wished to know whether regional services coordinated sectoral plans at regional level.

15. Mrs. KARP observed that, in spite of the difficulties Mali was experiencing, it appeared to have a genuine political will to apply the Convention. She welcomed the fact that the State party was contemplating the withdrawal of its reservation and urged it to do so, especially as the reservation ran counter to all the efforts described in the report. She was also gratified by the decisions taken on anti-personnel mines.

16. What obstacles were there to Parliament's adoption of the draft Code on the Well-Being of Children? That statute dealt with only some aspects of children's rights, namely child welfare provision by the social services and the protection of children, but it did not regard the latter as persons with rights, an attitude which was likewise reflected in the way the statistics had been compiled. Did legislation have due regard to freedom of expression, the right to privacy and the protection of children's physical integrity?

17. She was pleased that the young Speaker of the Children's Parliament was going to participate in the forthcoming celebrations to mark the tenth anniversary of the Convention. Turning to the follow-up to that parliament's decisions or recommendations, she wished to know if there were any plans to introduce additional machinery to ensure that they eventually resulted in the drawing up of amendments. Since working children were not represented in the parliament, what steps had been taken to enable them also to participate in its work?

18. What mechanisms permitted closer supervision of the coordination of and follow-up to local authorities' activities?

19. Mrs. TIGERSTEDT-TÄHTELÄ asked if there were any further inconsistencies between customary law and the Convention apart from the one mentioned in the written replies, in other words the difference of interpretation between certain provisions of the Convention and customary law concerning inequality between girls and boys with regard to inheritance and adoption. Were there any plans for the gradual elimination of those divergences?

20. Were children appointed or elected to the Children's Parliament? How old were the members? How did that body operate?

21. Mr. DOEK expressed his admiration for the Malian Government's labours to implement the Convention in general and to present the initial report to the Committee. Referring to the reply to the first question on the list of issues relating to article 116 of the Malian Constitution, he asked whether the fact that the Convention took precedence over national law meant that it could be relied on directly in court, and whether the Convention also ranked higher than customary law. As for the answer to the second question about the implementation of the Convention, he wished to know how responsibilities were divided between the Inter-Ministerial Commission for the Implementation of the National Plan of Action and the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family. Noting that in reply to the fourth question, it was stated that Mali had not established an independent monitoring body to handle complaints of children whose rights had been violated, but that such channels did exist in practice in the form of associations which worked for the defence and protection of children, he asked if that system was intentional and satisfactory, or if those arrangements were temporary. Was Mali considering the possibility of appointing an ombudsperson, one of whose duties would be to receive children's complaints? Were the organizations which strove to defend children's rights and which received complaints entitled to refer matters to a court, or did they tend to play a counselling and informative role?

22. Mr. RABAH, having noted that the reply to the first question spoke of a difference of interpretation between certain provisions of the Convention and customary law, especially in respect of adoption, asked what form adoption took in customary law and whether it was that of the adoption system laid down by Islamic law. Was it conceivable that customary law on the subject might be altered? Moreover, it would be interesting to know in what way NGOs cooperated with the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family and precisely how the Convention was disseminated in rural areas. Lastly, while the existence of the Children's Parliament could only be welcomed, it would be useful to know which children took part in it and if children from rural areas and all communities were represented.

23. Mrs. SARDENBERG commended Mali's endeavours to implement the Convention, welcomed the high level of the delegation which was presenting the initial report and said she thought that the Committee benefited from a direct dialogue with experts and the Minister for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family. She encouraged Mali to withdraw its reservation to article 16 of the Convention and paid tribute to the authorities for having co-chaired the World Summit for Children in 1990 and for having been entrusted with the follow-up to the World Summit until 2001. The democratization in progress in the country seemed to be a good opportunity to reconsider all provisions concerning children and to give children their rightful place in the spirit of the Convention. Furthermore, the decision of the Malian authorities to scrap their stock of anti-personnel mines could only be welcomed. That action was the outcome of cooperation with international and non-governmental bodies and it fell within the purview of article 45 of the Convention.

24. She also desired more detailed information about a number of points. In the oral statement, it had been asserted, with reference to the National Plan of Action, that monitoring and coordination machinery and apparatus had not functioned perfectly. What was the exact position? Were the Malian authorities still adhering to the National Plan of Action? As Mali had ratified five of the six basic human rights instruments, was the Government contemplating ratification of the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment? It seemed that peace had been restored in the north of the country after a period of disturbances. What impact had the conflict had on children and what was the exact situation at the moment? Did the Malian authorities rely on local chiefs to circulate the Convention and did they publicize the Convention in schools and remote communities? Lastly, it appeared that the system of indicators was not in operation. Was Mali receiving international cooperation in that respect?

25. The meeting was suspended at 11 a.m. and resumed at 11.15 a.m.

26. Mrs. THIERO (Mali) explained that, as far as legislation on children was concerned, the Code on the Well-Being of Children and the Code of General Social Protection had been drawn up by the Ministry of Health, which had been responsible for children's issues at the time. Thereafter they had come within the remit of the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family, which was in the process of revising all existing provisions on children, with a view to amending and supplementing them in the light of the Convention, while at the same time ensuring that all the needs of children were taken into account. Once that work had been completed, the draft code would be tabled in Parliament.

27. The Forum for Democratic Discussion was a platform where the whole Government answered questions from Malian citizens about human rights violations including, of course, infringements of children's rights. Anyone who wished to put a question had to write to the Ministry of Justice, then read out the question themselves or have it read out by someone else. Questions had been raised, for example, about the malfunctioning of the adoption system and child labour. They had led to the setting up of commissions to look into those issues.

28. Customary law might conflict with some principles of the Convention. That was why the authorities were reviewing all codes in order to fill in gaps and introduce the requisite reforms. At all events, the Convention was legally binding, but the authorities thought that in order to avoid problems, it was also wise to embody its provisions expressly in municipal law. The Criminal Code and the Code of Criminal Procedure had already been revised and the revised texts sent to the Bureau of the National Assembly. The Family Code was being revised. In the process, some provisions on inheritance would be amended so as to correct inequalities which put girls at a disadvantage.

29. No distinction was made between girls and boys when it came to adoption. There were two forms of adoption: fostering and full adoption. A commission had been established to afford greater protection of the rights of children who had been fully adopted. Full adoption was open to abuse and led to intolerable situations; for example nothing was known about the fate of many war orphans who had been adopted. Anyone could turn to the Committee for Equal Access to the Media; since children's rights could not be dissociated from human rights, children could also apply to it for help. NGOs worked in partnership with ministries; they offered suggestions and acted as barometers for the Government. By and large, relations between them and the administration presented no major difficulties. The Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family collaborated closely with associations working for the defence of families and children; for example, officials from the Ministry accompanied by representatives of NGOs and UNICEF had gone to the border of C_te d'Ivoire to obtain some idea of the ramifications of the cross-border trafficking in children.

30. Women and children who had been abused could turn to NGOs, which consulted lawyers who provided victims with legal guidance and counselling. NGOs could also publicize complaints they had received from children at the Forum for Democratic Discussion, because they were entitled to question the Government on behalf of children. The Government intended to appoint an ombudsperson, to whom all human rights violations, and therefore violations of children's rights, could be referred. The Convention against Torture had been ratified.

31. Mr. Mohamed MAIGA (Mali) said that the effects of shortcomings in the follow-up to the National Plan of Action had made themselves felt as early as 1996, when it had become apparent that there had been no systematic monitoring. The establishment of the Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family in 1997 and the setting up of various national, regional and local bodies ought to improve matters. All those who played a role in the execution of the Plan were sorely in need of training; in that respect, Government aid could be reliably expected, but assistance in the form of international cooperation under article 45 of the Convention would also be desirable. The Ministry for the Advancement of Women, Children and the Family was striving to sort out the difficulties of the Inter-Ministerial Commission responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Plan of Action and it was revising the Plan of Action and the text providing for the establishment of that Commission.

32. The Children's Parliament had come into being in 1995 and had been given legal status in 1996 through a ministerial order. Basically, it was a platform for expressing views and asking questions. Its members were aged between 10 and 18. The members of the Children's Parliament were selected first at regional level, where children were proposed by NGOs, municipalities or schools. Divers categories of children were represented: schoolchildren, working children, the disabled, children from rural areas, etc. The selection system could certainly be improved. The children from regional parliaments selected members of the national Parliament. The latter received State support, but it also needed international aid. The Children's Parliament had just adopted its rules of procedure. Standing Committees had been set up on child labour, education and recreation, health and well-being, participation, etc. Question time was one of the main channels of expression of the Children's Parliament. For three hours, the Members of Parliament were entitled to quiz the Head of State, the Cabinet, senior officials, NGOs and civil society about topics which were of interest to them. For example, in the past, the children had called for a children's city, a request which had been granted. Children also put forward recommendations. The persons to whom the questions and recommendations had been submitted reported on the action taken on them at the Parliament's following session.

33. It was true that it had not been easy to compile special protection indicators and support in that respect had been requested from UNICEF. It had, however, been possible to work out the range of indicators (listed in the written reply to question 5) and methods of data collection. A subsystem of social information was being introduced, albeit with some delay, under the Sanitation and Social Development Plan. The creation of that vital information system was a real challenge, but the system ought be introduced during the year 2000.

34. Mr. BALLO (Mali) said that social indicators formed part of the blueprint for the sanitation and social information system. In 1998, after the Ten-Year Plan had been adopted, the Malian Government had determined the list of indicators but, having noted that some sets of information were lacking, it had had to devise a subsystem of social information which included indicators in that field.

35. Mr. Mohamed MAIGA (Mali) stated that in Mali the notion of children's rights was inseparable from that of human rights. The Government intended to devise an extensive peace studies programme which would take concerns about children's rights into account. The Convention was already on the curriculum of some teacher-training colleges.

36. Mrs. THIERO (Mali) said that many girls left home to work in towns in order to help their mother collect their trousseau. Those girls were called "migrant working girls" or "domestic helps". A programme to back women's advancement had been formulated with the assistance of various women's associations and NGOs, in order to provide support for those young girls, offer them literacy courses and protect them from certain employers. There were more than 4,000 migrant working girls in Mali and the theme of the previous African Children's Day had been "Halt the exploitation of migrant working girls". That social phenomenon had existed for generations in Mali, but some unwelcome developments had unfortunately been noted. Her country was aware of its obligations and, as a signatory of the Convention, it would take all requisite steps to protect those girls. No reliable statistics yet existed on that subject. A national programme formulated by the Ministry of Employment, the Civil Service and Labour dealt with the work of migrant girls and was aimed at ending intolerable forms of child labour, despite the country's poverty. As far as discrimination against Tuareg children was concerned, she explained that Mali had suffered from uprisings which had precipitated the displacement of population groups to neighbouring countries. Once peace had been restored, those groups had returned and settled again. Tuareg children were no different from others. They went to school like all other children. Previously, nomadic teachers had followed parents and children on their journeys. Measures were currently being taken to settle those peripatetic schools and create another system so that children could exercise their rights without discrimination. Bonds had existed between the different population groups for centuries and many of the Malian Government's development projects were targeted on the north of the country.

37. The Inter-Ministerial Commission had been set up before the Department for the Advancement of Children. Responsibilities now had to be transferred from the Commission to the Department. A convention ratified by Mali was legally binding, but since there was a high level of illiteracy in the country, all codes were systematically read out again so as to make the provisions contained in international instruments more widely understood. To date, no one had tried to rely on the Convention at the expense of customary law. The preamble to the Constitution rendered null and void the country's reservations to article 16 of the Convention and the Ministry would be withdrawing those reservations in the very near future. As for the dissemination of the Convention in the countryside, she announced that instructors had been trained to publicize translations of the Convention into the national languages of Bamanan, Soninké, etc., in rural areas. Nevertheless, the country needed international aid to translate it into the many other languages spoken and written in Mali. Fifty thousand booklets had already been distributed in schools and it was interesting to note that children were better acquainted with the Conventions's provisions than were adults. Everything was being done to circulate the Convention and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, so that their principles would be applied more faithfully. The traditional chiefs were associated with steps to disseminate the Convention, as they were able to spread the messages of the Malian Government.

38. The CHAIRPERSON invited the members of the Committee to ask questions about the sections of the list of issues concerning general measures of implementation, definition of the child and general principles.

39. Mr. RABAH enquired whether measures were being taken to raise the age of consent to marriage, especially of girls, the age of consent to sexual relations and the minimum age of employment. It would be interesting to know the reasons underlying Mali's reservation to article 16 of the Convention.

40. Mrs. KARP asked what share of international aid was allotted to children's development. In addition, it would be useful to know if the human rights ombudsperson would also be instructed to examine violations of children's rights. Lastly, she requested more detailed information about children's participation in daily life and wondered whether a child's views were always respected in practice and not just in the Children's Parliament.

41. Mrs. OUEDRAOGO asked how far the three subcommissions (survival, development and protection) of the Inter-Ministerial Commission took the principle of participation into account. As for the implementation of article 4 of the Convention, she wished to know what steps were being taken in order to implement the 20/20 Initiative recommended by the United Nations. Noting that securing certain rights to children was meeting with some resistance in Malian society, she asked what measures and strategies were planned to remove those obstacles to the effective implementation of the Convention. Pointing out that it was necessary to do more than simply ensure the well-being of children, she inquired how much attention had been devoted to the notion of a child as a person with rights on African Children's Days. Referring to the weaknesses listed in the report, she asked what steps were being taken to involve the media more closely and to correct the excessive centralization which was hampering the implementation and monitoring of the Convention. She stated that, in the Committee's opinion, the best solution to the dearth of financial resources, a problem shared by most developing countries, was to maximize the use of available resources and establish priorities accompanied by deadlines. As far as information and publicity regarding the Convention were concerned, what progress had been made with the measures outlined in the report and what stumbling blocks were being encountered in that respect? What links existed between the annual forum on children's rights and the Children's Parliament?

42. What measures were being adopted to end the practice of early marriage? Were marriages still arranged at birth? There were some reports of discrimination on grounds of caste. What action was being taken by the Government in that connection? Furthermore, how was the principle of the child's best interests translated into practice in daily life? More specifically, what was the social situation and legal status of children born out of wedlock? She emphasized that although Malian law punished abortion, a distinction had to be drawn between theory and practice, and she asked about the numerous cases of illegal abortions, especially among teenagers.

43. Mrs. SARDENBERG welcomed Mali's ratification of the Convention against Torture and the participation of NGOs in the drafting of the report and the translation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child into national languages. She asked to what extent and how adults participated in the Children's Parliament. She requested more details about coordination procedures between the central Government and local authorities and about arrangements to ensure that results were obtained at local level. She then raised the issues of the difference in the minimum age of marriage for boys and girls, respect for children's opinions, the situation of children born out of wedlock and infanticide. Lastly, how was article 3 of the Convention complied with when governmental policy was formulated and implemented?

44. Mrs. KARP commented that, according to the report, children's testimony was accepted for information purposes only. Given that more and more children were prepared to lodge complaints of domestic violence or sexual abuse, how could such a restriction be compatible with the notion of a child as a person with rights? How could such practices be countered if the child's opinion was not respected?

45. The meeting was suspended at 12.30 p.m. and resumed at 12.45 p.m.

46. The CHAIRPERSON proposed that the Malian delegation reply at the following meeting and invited the members of the Committee to put further questions.

47. Mrs. KARP, noting that, according to the report, cases of ill-treatment of children by the police were rare, pointed out that some allegations going back to 1977 had still not been investigated. She therefore asked if there was any supervisory system to prevent such acts and to see to it that the Convention against Torture was applied. As far as corporal punishment was concerned, she asked if a formal ban was in place in reception facilities as it was in schools and how the "parents-neighbours" system for reporting corporal punishment in families operated. Since parents were authorized by law to censor the correspondence of their children, reservations had been made to the principle of respect for a child's privacy, which was set forth in article 16 of the Convention. What were the reasons for that position?

48. Mr. DOEK asked for precise information about the specialized state or non-state institutions mentioned in the report, which treated the isolated cases of children who had been maltreated. As far as the ban on corporal punishment was concerned, it seemed that complaints could be lodged against school disciplinary councils. Did a similar body exist in reception facilities? What was the registry office project to register births in remote areas and of what did it consist?

49. Mrs. OUEDRAOGO asked how births were registered among nomads. As for the travelling libraries set up alongside railway lines, she wished to know for whom that scheme was intended, why that location had been chosen and what arrangements had been made in towns which were not served by the railway. She also wished to have more ample information about the awareness programmes run in the holidays by students. At whom were they targeted and to what extent did they involve the participation of children? Taking note of the bill relating to the Film Censorship Committee, she asked if it would apply to television and all video cassettes. She pointed out, with reference to the prevention of acts of torture, that excision was still a worrying problem and wondered what the chances were of achieving a ban, in view of the fact that 75 per cent of Malian women were in favour of maintaining the practice. How and by whom were complaints or reports of the isolated cases of ill-treatment lodged? Lastly, was there any real supervision of the ban on corporal punishment in schools and were parents informed of the ban?

50. Mr. RABAH asked why Malian legislation and traditions were not consonant with the provisions of article 12 of the Convention, which related to respect for a child's views. When a child insisted on giving his or her opinion, how was it generally received in families and schools?

51. Mrs. SARDENBERG requested more information about discrimination against girls, especially discrimination connected with early marriage and about "garibus" children. Since only 30 to 40 per cent of Malian children were registered at birth, she endorsed the questions put by the other members of the Committee on that subject. Were the existing training courses also attended by traditional midwives who delivered children born outside hospitals? On the question of domestic violence, she asked for some explanations regarding community disapproval (parents-neighbours). Was that practice linked to customary law and of what did it consist?

52. Mrs. OUEDRAOGO asked how children were corrected in families if corporal punishment was really not allowed and whether parents were made aware of alternative methods. She also mentioned the question of violence among young people and asked what preventive measures were being adopted in that sphere.

The meeting rose at 1.05 p.m.