The Death Penalty in the OSCE Area–Background Paper 2017 uncertainty and distress amounting to a violation of article 7 (the prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment) of the ICCPR”.42 The UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions has also stated that “refusing to provide convicted persons and children with advance notice of date and time of execution is a clear violation of human rights. These practices are inhuman and degrading and undermine procedural safeguards surrounding the right to life”.43 The UN Special Rapporteur on torture found that secrecy and refusal to hand over remains to families are especially cruel features of capital punishment and that there is the need for total transparency and avoidance of harm to innocent people in the whole process.44 Children experience grief, emotional and psychological trauma differently to adults, owing to their physical and emotional development and specific needs. In children, ill-treatment may cause even greater or irreversible damage than for adults. While the death of a parent is often a painful loss, the knowledge that the death was caused by the deliberate actions of another (the state) is distinctly traumatic for children.45 The neglect of children’s suffering, stigma and discrimination This situation can be further worsened when authorities involved either fail to recognize or deliberately refuse to consider the emotional and material needs of these children and that the children can experience public indifference or hostility.46 Despite these dangerous consequences, the effects of capital punishment on this vulnerable group of indirect victims are rarely considered in criminal justice systems.47 Besides internalized feelings and trauma, children of parents on death row or executed often face extreme stigma and hostility from the community. Stigma is a painful punishment that society can inflict on the family of a condemned person. Sometimes discrimination and hostility from the community may be so great that the family may move to a different area, where they are unknown. Potential alternative carers, including family members, may decide not take in children to avoid 42  United Nations Economic and Social Council, Report of the Secretary-General on Capital punishment and implementation of the safeguards guaranteeing protection of the rights of those facing the death penalty, U.N. Doc. E/2005/3, 9 March 2005, para.125, <http://undocs.org/E/2005/3>. 43  United Nations Economic and Social Council Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, Report, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/2006/53/Add.3 (2006), para.32, < https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/ UNDOC/GEN/G06/120/57/PDF/G0612057.pdf?OpenElement>. 44  United Nations General Assembly, Interim report of the Special Rapporteur on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment orpunishment, U.N. Doc. A/67/279 (2012), p.14, <https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N12/458/12/PDF/N1245812.pdf?OpenElement>. 45  Helen Kearney, “Children of parents sentenced to death”, QUNO, February 2012, p.14, <http://www.quno. org/sites/default/files/resources/ENGLISH_Children%20of%20parents%20sentenced%20to%20death.pdf>. 46  Child Rights Connect, op. cit., note 26, p. 2. 47  Ibid. 18