A/HRC/19/72
Monitoring of borders and areas of return by teams from the Office of the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees made it possible to record the spontaneous return, in midOctober 2011, of some 130,000 refugees from camps and border areas.
65.
According to information provided by humanitarian actors, an estimated US$
291,989,445 is needed to help finance humanitarian response and emergency preparedness
efforts. Although donors rapidly provided funding at the start of the humanitarian crisis, the
humanitarian emergency action plan is not sufficiently financed. As of November 2011,
humanitarian partners had access to only 34 per cent of the required funds, or US$
100,543,115. This lack of resources has particularly affected the humanitarian response in
the Moyen Cavally region, even though the area between Guiglo and the Liberian border
near Toulepleu and Zouan-Hounien was declared an emergency zone in April.
66.
The independent expert is concerned that humanitarian actors are not sufficiently
present on the spot to facilitate the return of thousands of internally displaced persons and
refugees to these same areas and to assist and protect the most vulnerable, contribute to the
renovation of thousands of destroyed houses and restore basic social services. A
humanitarian response in this region could prevent new intercommunity tensions.
C.
Women and children
67.
Women and children have suffered greatly from the post-election crisis in Côte
d’Ivoire. The independent expert held a meeting with women’s representatives who warned
of a resurgence of sexual and physical violence against women, especially in the west; there
had been 71 alleged cases of rape and 215 cases of physical violence since the end of the
post-election crisis. The perpetrators are sometimes men in uniform. The independent
expert also received information about eight rapes, some involving girls between the ages
of 5 and 14, that were committed in Abidjan, Bouaké, Bondoukou, Issia (40 km from
Daloa) and San-Pédro. In Bouaké, the victim was found dead. After these acts, four people
were supposedly arrested. The other presumed perpetrators escaped. During his visit to
Bouaké, the independent expert was informed about 42 cases of female genital mutilation
performed in October 2011 in Kotolo, a village in the commune of Dabakala, including 1 in
which a 4-year-old girl died.
68.
Despite campaigns by chocolate manufacturers, child labour on the country’s cocoa
plantations remains a concern. Many children still perform dangerous tasks such as using
machetes, spraying pesticides and handling heavy loads. This situation is a violation of
children’s basic rights. It is important for the Government to recognize the right of the child
to be protected from economic exploitation and from performing any work that is likely to
be hazardous or to interfere with the child’s education, or to be harmful to the child’s health
or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development.
69.
The Government has examined the issue and steps have been taken to address the
problem of child labour in the cocoa sector. In fact, at the extraordinary Council of
Ministers session of 3 November 2011, the President signed two decrees establishing,
respectively, national and inter-ministerial monitoring committees on child trafficking,
exploitation and labour.
D.
Prisons
70.
The independent expert visited the prisons of Korhogo, Odienné, Boundiali and
Katiola, the Abidjan Detention and Correction Centre and the Abidjan military prison,
where individuals arrested in connection with the post-election violence are being held.
Conditions of detention for the prisoners visited were generally satisfactory. No cases of
GE.12-10060
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