VICE PRESIDENT OF U.N. CHILD RIGHTS COMMITTEE CALLS FOR LEGISLATION AGAINST ABUSIVE CHILD DRUGGING AT CHURCH OF SCIENTOLOGY INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
Dr. Iftikhar Ayaz, of the Minority Rights Group of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) expressed outrage about the exploitation children endure
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Participants Conference participants endorsed a declaration demanding an end to forced child drugging
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Participants at an international conference, held in Brussels on Tuesday, entitled “The Abuse of Children in Europe and Beyond” called on democratic institutions, governments and civil society to end the flagrant drugging of children for alleged learning disorders.
Dr. Norberto Liwiski, Vice President of the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child, addressing the conference through a video conference link from Buenos Aires, called for European Union legislation to end this abuse of children’s rights.
The conference, commemorating Universal Children’s Day, took up the issue of forced drugging of children for so-called behavioural disorders. Growing evidence of harmful effects of these drugs, including suicidal ideation and aggression, was discussed by the panel of experts at the conference, prompting their endorsing a declaration demanding an end to forced child drugging. This declaration is now being forwarded to European national governments and human rights NGO groups.
Among the participants of the conference at the Church of Scientology International European Office for Public Affairs and Human Rights were Dr. Iftikhar Ayaz, member of the Minority Rights Group of the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC); Ms. Luciana Sbarbati, Italian MEP; Dr. Roberto Cestari, Consultant of the Tuscany and Piedmont region of Italy for Human Rights and Mental Health and President of the Citizen’s Commission on Human Rights of Italy and Dr. Sami Timimi, UK author and psychiatrist.
Last August, the European Commission issued the strongest government warning to date against child antidepressant use, based on findings by the European Medicines Agency. In September 2005, the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child expressed concern that an estimated 17 million children are prescribed mind-altering drugs for so-called behavioural disorders despite growing evidence of their harmful effects.
“This form of child abuse is a very serious human rights issue, threatening the very fabric of society by putting an entire generation at risk from these dangerous drugs, whose harmful effects are well documented,” said Martin Weightman, Human Rights Director of the Church of Scientology International European Human Rights Office. “As Scientology founder, L. Ron Hubbard stated, ‘When children become unimportant to a society, that society has forfeited its future.’ ”
The General Assembly of the United Nations recommended in 1954 that all countries institute a Universal Children’s Day. The 20th of November marks the day on which the Assembly adopted the Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1959 and the Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989.
With 192 ratifying countries, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely endorsed of any international human rights treaty. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child is the body responsible for monitoring implementation of the Convention by its member states.
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