OSCE, Alm.del - 2008-09 - Bilag 36: Report for the general committee on democracy, human rights and humaitarian questions: "The OSCE: Addressing New Security Challenges"

For decades progressively growing consumption has been the order of the day on thedevelopment agenda, in particular for social groups that wield the greatest social authority, i.e.the upper and the middle class, hence these groups’ problems have come to the social forefrontduring the crisis. In many ways they overshadow the crisis’ dramatic impact on those who areunable to determine their own problems or clearly articulate them against other, better-off andbetter-educated groups.The main problem of the crisis and, in effect, its dramatic nature deals with the fact that itsimpact varies in gravity from country to country as well as social and professional groups insideeach country. Yet, essential issues like ecology and social welfare, healthcare, lack of vital socialand material goods in a number of countries and even social groups in industrially developedstates are addressed far inferior to need. Such development has come to jeopardize both natureand humanity at large.Not only has the economic crisis exacerbated the age-old problems of vulnerable social groups,but it has also highlighted new present-day challenges. During recession the main problemfacing all the countries is growing unemployment, lower real income of households andsubsequent problems aggravated by the following challenges:1. Unemployment, in particular:1.1. among women, which, though legally prohibited, is caused by a possibly strongerdiscrimination while recruiting and dismissing employees, invariable lower salaries forwomen as they have to combine family responsibilities with bearing and rearing children;1.2. among youth, which has to do with fewer jobs available and lower demand forlabour, especially with insignificant career record;2. Trafficking of humans, in particular women and children as an alternative to any legalbusiness, which is now failing;3. Child poverty and neglect, child pornography, paedophilia and stronger involvement ofchildren into crime; in this connection the need for engagement by mass-media is particularlyactual today to reveal these negative aspects, and to ensure their wide demonstration andattraction of appropriate power structures and the public for resolving the existing problems;4. Child exploitation, and the spread of the worst forms of child labour as the cheapest one.Efforts undertaken by the International Labour Organization to decrease the number of workingchildren, which has fallen by 27.8% over the past few years, may come to naught;5. The crisis puts family values to the test. The highest pressure is on families whose incomedirectly depends on current salaries, without any outside financial sources like property orprivate business. The mounting financial predicament often renders families incapable of payingoff their loans and providing their kids with decent education.

These problems directly cause a cornucopia of new problems, i.e. lower birth rate, growingabortion rate, more abandoned children, which, in its turn, only compounds the complicateddemographic background.Interstate transfer of specific social activities need to be put in practice. On the one hand, suchactivities in Russia in this field are clearly inadequate. On the other hand, an ideologicalapproach is increasingly gaining ground, with many aspects of genuine assistance to its facilitiesfaltering and even collapsing (i.e. few nursery schools along with too many students insecondary schools, poor healthcare, little access to sports and exercise therapy for most childrenand teenagers etc.).At the same time the so-called “old EU members” have gone a long way building support forthese social groups through both the state and various communities. This positive experience isabsolutely invaluable for both countries whose citizens accumulated the experience but also formany other European states, since they all have a lot in common in most cultural dimensionsand, consequently, lifestyles.Today, Russia is one of the main recipients of such experience due to its trailblazing in political,economic and social development. But while present-day Russian legislative reform is in manyways based on European achievements, there is no actual transfer of hands-on social workexperience or social assistance from the EU to Russia.The global community has already passed through the first stage of the financial and economiccrisis, which is an integral part of the economic cycle.Yet experts forecast that the raging crisis might last longer and spread universally.This will place even greater responsibility for their nationals’ future on all the OSCEparticipating States and will require greater efforts to protect social rights of vulnerable groups inparticular.It is necessary to quickly conclude international bilateral agreements on co-operation in childadoption issues with a view to enhancing control over their subject matter as regards child-rearing practices.A new international instrument is needed to define the main rules of providing for children aftera divorce of parents who are nationals of different countries. In this connection it is alsonecessary to speed up as much as possible work on national legislation, directed toward theimprovement of social protection of citizens, and first of all the most vulnerable groups of thepopulation.Today, with a growing number of armed conflicts, unrestrained production and use of state-of-the-art weapons of mass destruction and indiscriminate action, and new threats posed bytransnational terrorism, it is especially important to protect basic human rights in the extremeenvironment of hostilities. The situation is further exacerbated by the fact that most suchconflicts are internal hostilities killing civilians. In this connection, and in accordance with UNSecurity Council Resolution 1325, questions of protection of victims of any confrontations, firstof all women and children, are particularly urgent.Triggered by sprouting ethnic separatism, religious extremism, collapsing political systems,poverty and social disparity, internal armed conflicts are often characterized by atrocities anddirect neglect of humanitarian law as demonstrated by the belligerent parties. As a rule, civiliandeaths and injuries are a direct outcome of grave violations of international humanitarian law.2