The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning opened its ninety-first session, which is being held in Geneva from 29 August to 23 September, during which the Committee will review reports on the efforts of Germany, Kuwait, North Macedonia, Philippines, South Sudan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan and Viet Nam to adhere to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In an opening statement, Andrea Ori, Chief, Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Representative of the Secretary-General, said that armed conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and intersecting political, economic, and environmental crises continued to negatively impact children’s rights globally. However, children were increasingly standing up for their rights. Following the ground-breaking 2018 day of general discussion on child human rights defenders, 13 child human rights defenders, between 10 and 17 years of age, were now advising the Committee on spreading awareness on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change. More than 7,000 children from 103 countries had participated in an online questionnaire to prepare the first draft of the general comment.
Mikiko Otani, Committee Chair, said the Committee on the Rights of the Child had been given one additional week this session to make up for the shortened eighty-ninth session in February due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Children were seriously affected by conflict, climate change, food crises and other humanitarian situations, poverty, and the negative impact of the pandemic, such as the disruption on education and mental health. However, children’s issues were not receiving the necessary attention. The Committee had a crucial role to play, to call on States and the international society to highlight the needs of children and support for them and making the children’s agenda more visible.
Before adopting the session’s agenda, the Committee also heard statements from representatives of the Children’s Advisory Team, Child Rights Connect, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, United Nations Children’s Fund, and the Secretary of the Committee.
Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found , while webcasts of the public meetings can be found . The programme of work of the Committee’s ninetieth session and other documents related to the session can be found .
The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. this afternoon to consider the combined third to sixth periodic report of North Macedonia .
Statements
ANDREA ORI, Chief, Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Representative of the Secretary-General , said that armed conflicts, the COVID-19 pandemic, and intersecting political, economic, and environmental crises continued to negatively impact children’s rights globally. However, children were increasingly standing up for their rights. Following the ground-breaking 2018 day of general discussion on child human rights defenders, 13 child human rights defenders, between 10 and 17 years of age, were now advising the Committee on spreading awareness on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change. More than 7,000 children from 103 countries had participated in an online questionnaire to prepare the first draft of the general comment.
During this session, the Committee would hold the eighth biennial meeting with the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, to take stock of progress made since the last meeting, and further strengthen the collaboration between these bodies. The Committee, together with the Committee on Migrant Workers, would also celebrate the fifth anniversary of the adoption of the joint general comments on the human rights of children in the context of international migration. Mr. Ori said that the Committee would also work on the first draft of the general comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, to be disseminated for public consultation later this year.
Mr. Ori said the Chairs of the treaty bodies had endorsed a comprehensive proposal at their thirty-fourth annual meeting in June, to establish a predictable schedule of State reviews, with an eight-year cycle for full State reviews and follow-up reviews in between. This demonstrated the commitment of the treaty bodies to work together and would hopefully provide a basis for a more sustainable allocation of resources. The next annual full-day meeting of the Human Rights Council in February/ March 2023 would focus on the rights of the child and the digital environment. The Secretary-General’s decision to develop a system-wide guidance note on child rights was a strong message that children remained a top priority for the United Nations. Mr. Ori said that the five-week session would allow the Committee to decrease the considerable backlog of reports received and pending consideration which now stood at 80 reports. He concluded by wishing the Committee a successful and productive session.
MIKIKO OTANI, Committee Chair , said this session was the second time that the Committee on the Rights of the Child had been given one additional week to make up for the shortened eighty-ninth session in February this year due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Children were seriously affected by conflict, climate change, food crises and other humanitarian situations, poverty, and the negative impact of the pandemic, such as the disruption on education and mental health. However, children’s issues were not receiving the necessary attention. The Committee had a crucial role to play, to call on States and the international society to highlight the needs of children and support for them and making the children’s agenda much more visible.
SAMEER, Children’s Advisory Team , a 16-year-old from Trinidad and Tobago, said that the relevant current issues in his country and on a global scale lay in children’s mental health, as well as society’s treatment of immigrant children. The first step in solving societal problems was to spread awareness, allowing information to be disseminated through the Internet in the form of videos and graphics to reach a large audience.
GLORIA, Children’s Advisory Team , a 15-year-old from Cameroon, said the Children’s Advisory Team had worked on the United Nations documents on children’s rights, bringing a perspective adapted and personalised for the interest of children. She called on the Committee to create a framework of actions and expression on the contribution of girls in the policies of the promotion and safeguard of peace in the world.
IRIA, Children’s Advisory Team , said in some parts of the world, children did not have their right to education, food, clean water, and medical help. A much larger part of the attention should be paid to those children, as well as the children in Ukraine who were left without their homes and even their parents.
JORGE, Children’s Advisory Team , from Bolivia, said if people were educated against violence, violence would hardly exist. If people were educated to take better care of the environment, the environment would be better cared for.
SOPHIA, Children’s Advisory Team , said that one the child issues the Committee should focus on was child protection, because there were dangers everywhere and children needed to be protected from any kind of harm.
MIRIAM, Child Advisor, Child Rights Connect , speaking from Lebanon, said that during the General Assembly Event of Child Rights Connect, child defenders started discussing resolutions for the greater promotion of child rights mainstreaming. She called for appropriate assistance of guardians, organizations, and the Committee to support access to justice for child human rights defenders. Child human rights defenders urged the Committee to develop the concept of children’s advisory teams within the United Nations to promote this mainstreaming process.
Child Rights Connect congratulated the Children’s Advisory Team for delivering their statements, which marked the first time ever that children had addressed the opening of the session. Next week, Child Rights Connect and Universal Periodic Review-Info were convening a briefing on child human rights defenders and the Universal Periodic Review, with Committee members encouraged to participate. Child Rights Connect would mark its fortieth anniversary next year, and the challenges faced by children’s rights defenders would be the focus of the anniversary project.
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the Office of the High Commissioner was continuing its work to develop a United Nations system-wide guidance note of the Secretary-General on child rights. The Office of the High Commissioner was also advancing its work on child rights mainstreaming by following up on its 2020 high-level panel on the matter via a report containing concrete recommendations. The latest resolution on child rights at the Council also requested that the next annual full-day meeting would focus on the rights of the child and the digital environment. Extra steps would be taken to involve children throughout the process of the annual day organization and at the event. The study on the human rights implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people had been finalised and would be presented to the Human Rights Council at its upcoming session.
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization , said that 7.3 million children were displaced in 2021 because of natural disasters as the climate crisis burnt on. Over 64 million children remained out of the classroom blocked by discrimination, poverty and conflict, and COVID-19 had contributed to a 200 per cent increase in mental health conditions reported amongst youth. Through investments in children, global issues could be tackled and more equal societies could be created. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization was working to safeguard access to education through a new initiative to fight for all children impacted by climate change to have continued access to safe, inclusive schools.
United Nations Children’s Fund said that over the past year, the United Nations Children’s Fund had been working on a disability inclusion policy to accelerate progress towards disability inclusion, informed by a collaborative process involving surveys and consultations, including with organizations of persons with disabilities and children with disabilities. It called for accelerated action by the Fund on the prevention of stigma, discrimination, neglect, and violence; improvement of infrastructure, services, programmes and coordination; and access to community care and support services, among other initiatives. Final approval and rollout were planned before the end of 2022.
ALLEGRA FRANCHETTI, Secretary of the Committee , said that seven reports had been received since the last session, bringing the total number of reports to 80. The total number of ratifications of the Convention remained at 196, while 58 periodic reports were overdue. No States had ratified any Optional Protocols since the last session. One new report had been received on the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child pornography and child prostitution; 38 initial reports were overdue under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and 51 initial reports were overdue under the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
The Committee then adopted its provisional agenda.
