Background

The A Child is A Child project began in 2008 as a Canadian student lead initiative. The founders of the project - under the influence of Dennis Browne and Andrew Fitzgerald

Andrew Fitzgerald

Father Andrew Fitzgerald O.P, a native of Kilkenny, he was a professor at St. Patrick's College, Carlow where he taught classics, he was chair of divinity....

, local lawyers as well as law teachers - are mainly students from St. John's, Newfoundland

Newfoundland and Labrador

Newfoundland and Labrador is the easternmost province of Canada. Situated in the country's Atlantic region, it incorporates the island of Newfoundland and mainland Labrador with a combined area of . As of April 2011, the province's estimated population is 508,400...

. With an active awareness of the global injustice that is child executions, a coalition of students set out to inform and advocate all over the world. The initiative has spread rapidly, gaining the support of numerous high schools across the province and on an international

International

----International mostly means something that involves more than one country. The term international as a word means involvement of, interaction between or encompassing more than one nation, or generally beyond national boundaries...

 level, and support from various social justice groups worldwide.

About Child Executions

Defined by the United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...

, a child is a person under the age of 18. Despite the fact that multiple countries have signed International Covenants that forbid them to execute anyone who has allegedly committed an offence before the age of 18, they continue to do so. Amnesty International

Amnesty International

Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

 has documented 26 executions of child offenders in Iran

Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...

 since 2005. In many cases, these minors have been imprisoned until the age of 18 and then executed. Currently, there are at least 134 minors on death row in Iran. Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia

The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...

 and Somolia also have executed persons for crimes committed as children.

The Conventions

Article 6 Part (c) – Article 6 of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976...

 requires that the sentence of death shall not be imposed for crimes committed by persons below eighteen years of age.

Article 37 Part (a) - No child shall be subjected to torture or other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Neither capital punishment

Capital punishment

Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...

nor life imprisonment without possibility of release shall be imposed for offences committed by persons below eighteen years of age;