The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning opened its ninety-third session, during which it will review reports on the efforts to adhere to the Convention on the Rights of the Child of Finland, France, Jordan, Sao Tome and Principe, Türkiye and the United Kingdom. During the meeting, the Committee also elected a new Chair, Ann Marie Skelton of South Africa, and four Bureau members, and heard three new Committee Experts make their solemn declaration.
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 and Representative of the Secretary-General, said this year marked 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the Office of the High Commissioner was devoting the month of May to celebrating critical voices and debate, to ensuring the safety of journalists and to protecting civic space. The space for children and child human rights defenders to influence their futures, dissent and protest was under pressure around the globe. Civil society was shedding light on human rights deficits, connecting with communities and rallying support to address these challenges.
Mr. Ori welcomed that over 16,000 children and supporting organizations had participated in two rounds of consultations for the draft of the general comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, which the Committee aimed to adopt during the session. The Committee’s expertise and dedication would be crucial in ensuring that the general comment conveyed the urgency and importance of ensuring every child’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
Further, Mr. Ori thanked the Committee for its crucial input to the United Nations system-wide Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming, which had been drafted and was currently being finalised and agreed on by United Nations agencies. Work was also underway to prepare the High Commissioner’s related report to the Human Rights Council on strengthening child rights mainstreaming by the end of this year.
Mikiko Otani, outgoing Committee Chair, said her tenure ended today. One of the highlights of her tenure was making the Committee more active, vocal and visible. The Committee had issued 37 statements individually or jointly over the past two years on various thematic or country specific issues concerning children. Another highlight, she said, was promoting child rights mainstreaming.
The Committee heard the following new Committee Experts make a solemn declaration: Thuwayba Al-Barwani (Oman), Mary Beloff (Argentina), and Rosaria Correa (Panama).
The Committee held elections for the new Chair and Bureau members of the Committee. Ann Marie Skelton (South Africa) was elected as Chair. Elected to the Bureau were Rinchen Chophel (Bhutan), Sopio Kiladze (Georgia), Luis Ernesto Pedernera Reyna (Uruguay), and Bragi Gudbrandsson (Iceland).
Ms. Skelton said she was honoured to have been elected as Chair and would work hard to deserve the trust placed in her. Children’s rights were facing new challenges daily, and the task of protecting children’s rights was vast. Numerous global issues were facing children, such as displacement, migration and climate change, and the Committee had witnessed backsliding in some areas of children’s rights. There was thus much work for the Committee to do, she said.
Before adopting the session’s agenda, the Committee also heard statements from representatives of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Child Rights Connect, the United Nations Children’s Fund and the Secretary of the Committee.
The ninety-third session of the Committee is being held in Geneva from 8 to 26 May. Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found , and webcasts of the public meetings can be found . The programme of work of the Committee’s ninety-third session and other documents related to the session can be found .
The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. on Tuesday, 9 May, to consider the combined sixth and seventh periodic report of France().
Statements
ANDREA ORI, Chief, Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and Representative of the Secretary-General, congratulated the three new members of the Committee on their election – Ms. Thuwayba Al-Barwani, Ms. Mary Beloff, and Ms. Rosaria Correa – and the members who were re-elected for a new four-year term. In a world where respect for children’s rights was in sharp decline, their work was more crucial than ever. Mr. Ori also thanked the outgoing Chair for her dynamic and active leadership during the last two years, and her enthusiasm and energy in raising the visibility of the Committee and of children’s rights in the work of the United Nations and other organizations. Her dedication to the cause of children’s rights was not only an inspiration for human rights defenders but also a reminder not to lower arms but to continue the struggle. She left very large shoes to fill.
This year marked 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was devoting the month of May to celebrating critical voices and debate, to ensuring the safety of journalists, and to protecting civic space. The space for people, including children and child human rights defenders, to influence their futures, for free and independent information for critical media reporting, for debate, for dissent and for protest was under pressure around the globe. Civil society was shedding light on human rights deficits, connecting with communities and rallying support to address these challenges.
Mr. Ori welcomed that over 16,000 children and supporting organizations had participated in two rounds of consultations for the draft of the general comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change. These children emphasised that the general comment should compel State and non-State parties to urgently resolve climate injustice, protect children from environmental harm, and ensure that all children were able to enjoy a safe future. The Committee’s expertise and dedication would be crucial in ensuring that the general comment conveyed the urgency and importance of ensuring every child’s right to a clean, healthy and sustainable environment.
The Office of the High Commissioner was placing a special emphasis in the context of the Human Rights 75 Initiative on engaging children and young people, to ensure that they were directly involved and shared their vision of human rights both today and for the future. It was crucial that the voices of children and youth informed the Vision Statement for Human Rights and the Summit of the Future in 2024. Children should be both subjects of the Summit and the resulting Pact for the Future, and active participants before, during and after the Summit.
The Office had continued its work to support the treaty body strengthening process. The upcoming annual Chairs’ meeting in New York from 29 May to 2 June 2023 would focus on discussing the implementation plan of the June 2022 Chairs’ decisions. Once backed by States, these conclusions would facilitate the treaty bodies’ work, including by introducing a predictable review calendar. Human and financial resources needed to be secured to implement the plan. The chronic under-funding of the treaty body system had contributed to significant backlogs in the handling of State party reports and individual communications. Advancing the full implementation of treaty-based human rights obligations required sustainable funding from Member States. The High Commissioner was committed to supporting greater funding for the human rights mechanisms during his tenure.
The annual full-day meeting of the Human Rights Council on the rights of the child and the digital environment took place on 10 March. Children from different regions discussed the challenges and opportunities for the full exercise of their rights in the digital environment directly with the High Commissioner, and the Committee’s extensive work on this matter was strongly represented. The topic of the next annual full-day meeting of the Human Rights Council would be the rights of the child and inclusive social protection.
The system-wide Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming had been drafted and was currently being finalised and agreed on by United Nations agencies. The Guidance would serve as the framework for strengthening the integration of the rights of the child across these entities. It had been widely consulted, including with children themselves. Mr. Ori thanked the Committee for its crucial input throughout the process. Work was also underway to prepare the High Commissioner’s related report to the Human Rights Council on strengthening child rights mainstreaming by the end of this year.
During the busy session, the Committee and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women would be working together on the back-to-back review of Sao Tomé and Principe to have more focused dialogues and recommendations on common issues concerning the two Committees.
Concerning individual communications under the Optional Protocol on a communications procedure, the Committee so far had adopted decisions concerning 122 cases. It had registered 222 cases to date, of which 14 were new cases against Chile, Ecuador, France, Finland, Spain, Switzerland and Türkiye. This left 100 cases that were pending review. During the current session, the Committee would examine cases against Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Luxembourg, Peru, Spain and Switzerland. Decisions would be published at the end of the session.
Mr. Ori wished the Committee a successful and productive session and looked forward to working with the new Chair and Bureau of the Committee who would commence their two-year term from this session.
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights said the Office was placing special emphasis on engaging children and ensuring their direct involvement. It was marking the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a series of initiatives, including a high-level event, and had established a human rights advisory group of 12 child human rights activists to promote the initiative worldwide. It was holding national and regional consultations and dialogues with children to understand their vision for human rights, and was looking forward to welcoming child rights activists to the commemorative event in December. The Office had contributed to the development of the Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming, and was working with partners on plans for its implementation. The High Commissioner was preparing a report on strengthening child rights mainstreaming that would be submitted to the Human Rights Council early next year. In September this year, the High Commissioner would present to the Council a report on the rights of the child and social protections. A child-friendly version of the report was also being prepared in consultation with children. During the fifty-fourth session of the Council, a panel discussion on youth and human rights would also be held, focusing on young people’s engagement in global climate decision-making processes.
Child Rights Connect said it was this year celebrating 40 years of child rights advocacy in Geneva, and was reflecting on the challenges currently faced by the child rights movement, including child human rights defenders. Non-State groups and States were imposing restrictions on and attacking child rights and child rights defenders, including through conservative initiatives within United Nations human rights processes in Geneva. These restrictions and attacks targeted all those standing up for child rights, and were undermining the child rights movement. Child Rights Connect was holding a conference on Friday, 26 May to discuss the impacts of these various challenges and how to respond. Child Rights Connect was partnering with the Office of the High Commissioner in its initiative for the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. It aimed to ensure that children’s views contributed to the High Commissioner’s vision statement on the future of human rights as well as the next operational management plan of his Office.
United Nations Children’s Fund said the 2022 Annual Report of the Fund’s Executive Director report highlighted the impact of the “polycrisis” on child rights. More than five million children under the age of five years died in 2021, primarily in low- and middle-income countries, and 54 countries were off track to meet the Sustainable Development Goal target for under-five mortality. More than half of all children lived at extremely high risk from climate hazards. As of 2022, half of the 1.2 billion people living in multi-dimensional poverty were children. In many countries, there had recently been rollbacks in laws, policies and plans promoting gender equality, comprehensive sexual education and protection against domestic violence. The Fund was committed in working with the Committee to elevate child rights at both global and country levels, including in the context of the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the lead-up to the Summit of the Future next year.
MIKIKO OTANI, Outgoing Committee Chair, said she was humbled and honoured to serve as the Chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child for the past two years, which ended today. She expressed gratitude to all members of the Committee for their collective wisdom and guidance, to members of the Secretariat for their support, and to United Nations Children’s Fund and Child Rights Connect and other civil society colleagues and all children for collaboration and partnership in various forms.
Ms. Otani said one of the highlights of her tenure was making the Committee more active, vocal and visible. The Committee had issued 37 statements individually or jointly over the past two years on various thematic or country specific issues concerning children. Another highlight, she said, was promoting child rights mainstreaming. Ms. Otani had collaborated with other United Nations human rights mechanisms, bodies and agencies, to integrate a child rights perspective and mainstream child rights in the wider United Nations system. The Committee had played an active role in the drafting process of the Secretary-General’s Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming.
In closing, Ms. Otani called on the incoming Chair and the Bureau to consider further developing these areas, while introducing new initiatives.
The Committee then held elections for the new Chair and Bureau members of the Committee. It elected Ann Marie Skelton (South Africa) as Chair, and Rinchen Chophel (Bhutan), Sopio Kiladze (Georgia), Luis Ernesto Pedernera Reyna (Uruguay) and Bragi Gudbrandsson (Iceland) as Bureau members.
ANN MARIE SKELTON, Incoming Committee Chair, said she was honoured to have been elected as Chair and undertook to work hard to deserve the trust placed in her. Children’s rights were facing new challenges daily, and the task of protecting children’s rights was vast. Numerous global issues were facing children, such as displacement, migration and climate change, and the Committee had witnessed backsliding in some areas of children’s rights. There was thus much work for the Committee to do.
Ms. Skelton said that during the session, the Committee would continue to cooperate with various relevant bodies to further enhance the promotion and protection of the rights of the child. It would discuss issues related to its methods of work, including how to address the issue of unnecessary overlap and repetitions of questions in the dialogue with States, and other measures for strengthening the treaty body process. The Committee would also consider communications and information it had received in relation to the Optional Protocol on the communications procedure. Further, it would continue to discuss how to integrate days of general discussion into the process of developing general comments, and work on its new draft general comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change.
ALLEGRA FRANCHETTI, Secretary of the Committee, congratulated Ms. Skelton and the new Bureau members on their election. Ms. Franchetti said that three reports had been received since the last session, bringing the total number of reports pending consideration to 73. The total number of ratifications of the Convention remained at 196, while 70 periodic reports were overdue. Three reports had been received under the Convention from the Central African Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa. Four States parties had decided to opt out of the simplified reporting procedure: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, Mexico and Myanmar. One State party, the Solomon Islands, had ratified the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict since the last session, bringing the number of ratifications to 173. No new reports had been received under the Optional Protocols; 38 initial reports were overdue under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and 50 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.
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