Human rights panel seeks to improve plight of children whose parents are sentenced to deathListen / Human rights experts meeting in Geneva on Wednesday looked at the issue of capital punishment from the perspective of children whose parents have been sentenced to death.
In addition to emotional trauma, research shows that these children suffer negative short-term and long-term effects, including an infringement of their human rights.
That's according to Flavia Pansieri, UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, who delivered the opening remarks.
"Children of parents sentenced to death are also subjected to the tension, the trauma, that comes from the situation the parent is in, but they themselves can also be subject to discrimination when the fact of having a parent sentenced to death or executed is seen as if the child him or herself were considered equally responsible whatever is the crime that led to that sentencing." (32")
Pansieri hoped that the panel discussion would lead to an exchange of views on the protection and assistance these children would need to ensure their human rights are protected.
Dianne Penn, United Nations.