The Protocol obliges States parties, among other things, to criminalize sexual
exploitation of children; transfer of organs of children for profit; engagement of
children in forced labour; offering, obtaining, procuring or providing children for
child prostitution; and producing, distributing, disseminating, importing, exporting, offering, selling or possessing child pornography for the above purposes.
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their Families
37. The International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant
Workers and Members of Their Families currently has 21 States parties and entered
into force in July 2003. It was developed by the United Nations in recognition of
the great impact of flows of migrant workers on States and people concerned, and
the need to develop norms which would contribute to harmonization of the attitudes of States through the acceptance of basic principles protecting migrant
workers and their families. The Convention enumerates the basic rights of this particularly vulnerable group in human society and provides for the protection of
those rights. Article 16 applies to migrant workers and their families many of the
international standards concerning the right to liberty and security of person.
Article 17 requires that migrant workers and members of their families who are deprived of their liberty be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent
dignity of the human person and for their cultural identity. Article 18 ensures that
all migrant workers and their families have due process of law and equality with
nationals of the State concerned before the courts, including the right to be presumed innocent until proven guilty according to law.
International humanitarian law
38. For the purposes of training prison officials, international humanitarian law may be
defined as the subset of human rights law applicable in times of armed conflict.
The basic substance of humanitarian law is set out, article by article, in the four
Geneva Conventions of 1949, which protect, respectively, the wounded and sick
in the field; shipwrecked persons; prisoners of war; and civilian persons. The four
Geneva Conventions currently have 189 States parties.
39. Additional sources include the two Additional Protocols of 1977 to the Geneva
Conventions. Protocol I reaffirms and further develops the provisions of the
Geneva Conventions with regard to international armed conflicts, while Protocol II
does the same for conflicts which are internal, rather than international. Protocol I
currently has 161 States parties and Protocol II has 156.
40. Under these instruments, international humanitarian law is to be applied in situations
of armed conflict, during which principles of humanity are to be safeguarded in all
cases. They hold further that non-combatants and persons put out of action by injury,
sickness, capture or other causes must be respected and protected, and that persons
suffering from the effects of war must be aided and cared for without discrimination. International humanitarian law prohibits the following acts in all situations:
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