HUMAN RIGHTS
Commitment: "We will take care to ensure that women as well as men benefit fully and equally from the
recognition of human rights and fundamental freedoms, which we reiterated on the occasion of the Beijing
Conference, and that the rights of children is respected"
Grade: +1
Assessment
- German Human Rights Practices for 1997/97 included a commitment on behalf of the Federal
Government towards the protection of children's rights, with no "societal pattern of abuse of human rights
of
children"
- public education is provided and is mandatory through the age of 16
- existing Child and Youth Protection Law stress the need for preventive measures of violence against
children through increased government support for counselling and financial assistance
- the Criminal Code was amended in 1993 to further protect children against pornography and sexual
abuse; for possession of child pornography, the maximum sentence is 1 year's imprisonment - the sentence
for distribution is 5 years; the amendment made sexual abuse of children by German citizens abroad
punishable even if the action in not illegal in the child's own country
- at the August 1996 World Conference Against the Sexual Abuse of Children in Stockholm, Foreign
Minister Klaus Kinkel announced the allocation of DM 100 towards the domestic elimination of child abuse
in Germany