Article 39: Promotion of physical and psychological recovery of child victims

Overview of Article 39

Article 39 is intended to ensure that all children who have experienced (i) violence, neglect, exploitation, or abuse, (ii) torture or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, or (iii) armed conflicts, as described in Articles 19 and 32-37, are provided with appropriate treatment regardless of parental circumstances, characteristics, or whether the child is lawfully in a particular State Party [1, 2]. The article applies to a very wide range of child victimizations, and requires a wide variety of services — medical, legal, educational, vocational, and psychological. As a result, the use of ‘appropriate’ was proposed rather than ‘all’ measures to avoid unduly strong or impossible burdens on States Parties, and the use of ‘promote’ rather than ‘enable’ was adopted to indicate a continuing obligation [3]. Services are required to be gender and culturally sensitive, scientifically and medically supported, private and confidential, and non-discriminatory [4].

Since the drafting, there are increased concerns about the escalating numbers of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin, and about sexually exploited adolescents [4, 5]. Frequently, their experiences are marked by violence and exposure to serious health risk and distress [4]. As such, culturally sensitive mental health care and special measures for reintegration are important considerations for refugee and migrant children [4, 6, 7].

Article 39 was reinforced by: (i) the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and (ii) the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict. Commitment to these protocols require States Parties to have a clear focus on rehabilitation, giving children appropriate assistance, by provision of high quality programs of recover and reintegration which are available and accessible in a non-discriminatory basis, where necessary. The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights; and the Convention on the Rights of Migrant Workers are relevant to this article as well.

Core attributes of Article 39

The core attributes of Article 39 are:

• Quality, appropriateness and comprehensiveness of the programs of recovery and reintegration
• Availability, accessibility and impartiality of the programs of recovery and reintegration

Each of these attributes can be measured in terms of structural or process implementation or in terms of outcomes achieved through implementation as outlined in the table below. Some indicators, for instance the structural ones, may be common to all attributes. An attempt has been made to balance the use of objective and subjective data indicators as well as qualitative and quantitative ones.

What did children say?

These are some ideas that children from around the world shared with us during the Global Child Rights Dialogue (GCRD) project:

Relevant provisions within the SDGs

No relevant SDG provisions have been identified for this article.

Potential sources of data for users of the indicators sets

• Child abuse registry
• Child death and serious incidents/occurrence reports
• Coroner’s Office Reports/ Reviews/Inquests
• Ministry dealing with violence against children
• Ministry and government departments dealing with children in formal and informal care
• Offices of children’s ombudsperson
• Primary research by national human rights institutions for children
• Primary research by universities and NGOs

References used for the overview

1. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). (2007). Legislative History of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Vol. 1, pp. 314-334). New York, United States of America and Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations. Retrieved from https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/legislative-history-convention-rights-child-volume-1
2. Pais, M.S. (1997). The Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, International Labour Organization, and United Nations Staff College Project Turin Centre, Manual on Human Rights Reporting (pp. 433-434). Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Publication.
3. Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). (2007). Legislative History of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Vol. 2, pp. 800-802). New York, United States of America and Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/LegislativeHistorycrc2en.pdf
4. United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2003). CRC General Comment No. 4: Adolescent Health and Development in the Context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/4538834f0.html
5. United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2005). General Comment No.6 (2005), Treatment of unaccompanied and separated children outside their country of origin (CRC/GC/2005/6), (para. 13). Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/42dd174b4.html
6. United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2012). Day of General Discussion: “The rights of all children in the context of international migration”. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/Discussion2012.aspx
7. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (1993). UNHCR Policy on Refugee Children (EC/SCP/82). Retrieved from https://www.unhcr.org/excom/scip/3ae68ccc4/unhcr-policy-refugee-children.html

References used to create indicators

• Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). (2007). Legislative History of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Vol. 1, pp. 314-348). New York, United States of America and Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations. Retrieved from https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/library/legislative-history-convention-rights-child-volume-1
• Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). (2007). Legislative History of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. (Vol. 2, pp. 800-803). New York, United States of America and Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Publications/LegislativeHistorycrc2en.pdf
• Pais, M.S. (1997). The Convention on the Rights of the Child. In the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Institute for Training and Research, International Labour Organization, and United Nations Staff College Project Turin Centre, Manual on Human Rights Reporting (pp. 433-434). Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Publication.
• United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2003). CRC General Comment No. 4: Adolescent Health and Development in the Context of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Retrieved from https://www.refworld.org/docid/4538834f0.html
• United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2012). Day of General Discussion: “The rights of all children in the context of international migration”. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/CRC/Pages/Discussion2012.aspx
• United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (1996). General guidelines for periodic reports: 20/11/96. General guidelines regarding the form and contents of periodic reports to be submitted by States Parties under Article 44, paragraph 1(b), of the Convention. Retrieved from http://www.childoneurope.org/issues/crc_committee/su06-General-Guidelines-for-Periodic-Reports.pdf
• United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. (2006). Day of General Discussion on the Right of the Child to be Heard. Retrieved from https://www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CRC/Discussions/Recommendations/Recommendations2006.doc
• United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. (1993). UNHCR Policy on Refugee Children (EC/SCP/82). Retrieved from https://www.unhcr.org/excom/scip/3ae68ccc4/unhcr-policy-refugee-children.html

Glossary/key words

Reintegration
“Taking all appropriate measures to promote physical and psychological recovery and social reintegration of a child victim of any form of abuse, neglect, exploitation, torture, armed conflict or any other form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment” (UNICEF Office of Research-Innocenti, 2000).

Article 39 Indicator Tables

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