A/HRC/30/18 defendants in capital cases (see A/HRC/11/2/Add.5). In a recent judgement, the Supreme Court of India referred to poverty as a new mitigating factor to commute a convict’s death penalty to life imprisonment. It stated that socioeconomic compulsions such as poverty were factors that should be considered by Courts while awarding a death sentence. 45 Research into death row prisoners in India has found that the overwhelming majority of the convicted individuals are poor and from lower castes. 46 III. Consequences arising at various stages of the imposition and application of the death penalty for the enjoyment of the human rights of other affected persons A. Children of parents sentenced to death or executed 40. The negative impact on the human rights of children whose parents are subject to the imposition and execution of the death penalty has received increasing attention. 47 In its resolution 68/147 on the rights of the child, adopted in 2013, the General Assembly acknowledges that a parent’s deprivation of liberty, sentencing to death or life imprisonment has a serious impact on children’s development, and urges States, in the framework of their national child protection efforts, to provide the assistance and support those children may require. Also in 2013, the Human Rights Council adopted resolution 22/11 on a panel on the human rights of children of parents sentenced to the death penalty or executed. In September 2013, at the panel organized by the Council, experts highlighted a number of negative short- and long-term effects of a parent’s death sentence on his or her children, including infringement of the enjoyment of a range of rights and obligations set out in the Convention on the Rights of the Child. These included, in particular, the obligation to ensure that the best interests of the child are duly taken into account and protected (art. 3); the right to be free from violence, in particular mental violence (art. 19); the right to special protection and assistance provided by the State when a child is deprived of his or her family environment (art. 20); and the right to a standard of living adequate for the child’s physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development (art. 27 (1)) (see A/HRC/25/33). 41. In October 2013, the Committee on the Rights of the Child recommended that Kuwait assess and fully take into account the best interests of the child in judicial proceedings where parents are involved and when sentencing parents to death (see CRC/C/KWT/CO/2, para. 32). 42. In her recent report to the Human Rights Council, the Special Rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers expressed concern that, despite the particular emotional and psychological distress of children whose parents were sentenced to death — who also often experienced social isolation and stigmatization — the support they were given was very limited. She therefore recommended that prosecutors and judges consider the best interests of the defendant’s children before requesting and ordering the death penalty (see A/HRC/29/26, para. 77). 45 46 47 See http://judis.nic.in/supremecourt/imgs1.aspx?filename=40836. See www.outlookindia.com/article/most-death-row-convicts-are-poor/292798. See www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/HiddenVictims.aspx. 13