Children's right to contact with their incarcerated parent: chapter 5 of the report to the German Federal Parliament on the development of the human rights situation in Germany, July 2016 - June 2017

Abstract

A parent held in custody has a serious impact on a child’s well-being. It violates the right of the child to direct contact with their parents according to art. 9 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). The Convention also calls for ensuring the primacy of the child’s best interests if the State intervenes - for example, through arrest - in the relationship between children and parents (art. 3 CRC). The National Monitoring Mechanism for the CRC has investigated the existing regulations on children visiting a parent taken into custody, and analyzed the penal law in the federal states. Additionally, the ministries of justice provided information through a questionnaire on relevant regulations. The analysis shows: The possibilities for children to visit their parents kept in prison vary considerably across Germany.