Child offenders are people convicted of crimes committed when they were below the age of 18. In a report issued today, Amnesty International documents executions of such offenders in eight countries since 1990: China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the United States of America, and Yemen. Most of these countries have now changed their laws to ban the use of death penalty against children, leaving the USA as the only country which openly acknowledges executing child offenders and which claims for itself the right to do so.

"The USA promotes itself as global human rights champion, yet it accounts for 13 of the 19 known executions of child offenders reported since 1998," Amnesty International continued, "As other violators drop away, the United States could be said to be the least progressive country in the world on this issue." ...