79 search results for
Human rights institutions
Recommendation 8:
Children’s rights, participation, welfare, and best interests are unquestionably interlinked. Children are persons with their own legal rights and must be guaranteed the right to participate in guardianship and family law proceedings (Grover, 2015; Martinson & Tempesta, 2018). Children’s rights to participate are in line with the UNCRC’s recommendations and FLA’s best interests provisions (Dundee, 2016), and work to safeguard and prioritize children’s voices and preferences about their own well-being.
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Recommendation 4:
Create education materials and training:
- For Indigenous Peoples, about the Code and BCHRT processes;
- Within the BCHRT, to develop cultural competency and safety among BCHRT staff and tribunal members;
- For the general public, through a proactive campaign to highlight specific areas of discrimination faced by Indigenous Peoples.
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Recommendation 1:
BC should recognize human rights as a guiding principle in its mental health law.
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Recommendation 17:
Create a public education campaign for Indigenous Peoples which addresses human rights from an Indigenous perspective:
- Make materials easily accessible at Band offices, Métis organizations, Friendship Centres, Indigenous political organizations, and universities.
- Emphasize cases where Indigenous individuals have successfully brought human rights claims.
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Recommendation 4:
As this literature review has established, there are various ways in which children’s rights to participate in legal proceedings can be strengthened and preserved. To ensure sufficient attention and awareness is given to children’s participation rights, all parties to legal proceedings involving children must be appropriately educated and trained (Canadian Coalition on the Rights of Children, 2016, p.9; CBA, 2020; Martinson & Jackson, 2016; Martinson & Raven, 2020a). To increase awareness on child rights, more information about court processes should be provided to children, particularly older children, so they can provide informed views and preferences during legal proceedings (Birnbaum & Saini, 2012; Byrne & Lundy, 2019; Paetsch et al., 2018). This could also be achieved by incorporating children’s rights into school curriculums (Collins, 2019). A holistic, rights-based education would not only preserve the best interests of the child through the expression of their views but could also enable children to further realise their rights in other areas (CBA, 2020; Paetsch et al., 2018).
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- Access to justice ,
- Accessibility ,
- Accessible services and technology ,
- Ageism ,
- Courts ,
- Decolonization and Indigenous rights ,
- Discrimination and hate ,
- Education and employment ,
- Human rights system ,
- Indigenous children and youth in care ,
- International human rights ,
- Policing and the criminal justice system
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Recommendation 14:
Amend the provincial Residential Tenancy Act to cover all housing and to strengthen tenants rights. Amend the provincial Human Rights Code and Residential Tenancy Act to make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of social condition including health status and drug use.
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Recommendation 106:
Amend the provincial Human Rights Code and Residential Tenancy Act to make it illegal to discriminate on the basis of social condition including health status and drug use.
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Recommendation 14:
Although the experience of racism in the use of status cards is near-universal amongst status First Nations, and the mention of status cards elicits overt and numerous racist responses in online forums, there is very little data collected, studies published, or indicators monitored about this experience. Increasingly, there is broad policy support for the collection and monitoring of race-based data to support equity and dignity for all persons. Future work pursuant to this study should continue, and specifically:
- Be a matter of focus of human rights offices and associated studies.
- Indicators and data collection about experience in the use of status cards, and outcomes data related to the experience of racism, should be embedded in surveying and performance monitoring at local, regional, provincial, and national levels, including by First Nations governments in their primary data collection and research projects. These should consider the unique experiences of LGBTQ2S+ persons as well as other groups that are experiencing intersecting and compounding forms of oppression and discrimination.
- Be tied to clear action plans and accountability for change.
- Be rooted in Indigenous data sovereignty.
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Recommendation 31:
All government actors and health care providers must recognize the specific and indispensable expertise of people with lived experience. Increase peer-run and peer-delivered services and peer-support positions within government services by:
- developing a provincial advisory board of people with lived experience of homelessness for BC Housing;
- establishing provincial best practices for engaging people with lived experience of poverty, homelessness, and substance use in service delivery modelled on GIPA (Greater Involvement of People living with HIV/AIDS), MIPA (Meaningful Involvement of People Living with HIV), and NAUWU (Nothing About Us Without Us) principles;
- collaborating with peer-led organizations to audit all provincial services (hospital, health, income assistance, shelter, housing) to identify and fund opportunities for peer engagement in service provision and planning; and
- developing a model for peer-involvement in the design and execution of homeless counts.
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Recommendation 7:
Academic scholarship and policy papers focused on children’s rights to representation point to the need for increased funding from government sources, to provide consistent and dependable counsel for children (Bala & Birnbaum, 2019; Byrne & Lundy, 2019; Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children, 2016; Collins, 2019). However, it is also notable that none of this literature provides specific guidance as to where extra funding should be sourced or how new programming may be implemented to maintain both efficient and effective legal assistance for children to facilitate the expression of their views in a legal setting. In particular, the CBA Alternative Report (2020) suggests that in B.C., absolutely no funding is set aside for children’s representation (p. 33). This is particularly problematic in relation to immigrant, refugee, and Indigenous children (CBA, 2020). This may be the case for two reasons: 1) an overall lack of resources (particularly given the current local and international economic climate in the wake of Covid-19 – see Garlen, 2020); and/or 2) a lack of awareness at the federal level of the critical importance of this issue, and the ‘domino effect’ of reduced rights for vulnerable populations. As a result, it is recommended that policy organisations focused on this issue work to demonstrate whether and how additional funding can be allocated to children’s legal representation. In New Zealand, for example, the Family Court (Supporting Families in Court) Legislation Bill forms part of a $62 million package that restores the right to legal representation at the start of a care of children dispute in the Family Court (Government of New Zealand, 2020, p. 1). Enhanced attention and funding at the federal level can only benefit both those organisations focused on this area, as well as beneficiary populations.
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