COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD CONCLUDES SIXTY-SEVENTH SESSION

The Committee on the Rights of the Child today concluded its sixty-seventh session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Croatia, Fiji, Hungary, Morocco, Singapore and Venezuela under the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child or its two Optional Protocols. It also adopted its report for the session.

The Committee considered eleven reports in total during its sixty-seventh session. They included five reports on the main Convention: Croatia, Fiji, Hungary, Morocco and Venezuela; two initial reports under the Optional Protocol to of Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography: Hungary and Venezuela; and four initial reports under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on children involved in armed conflict: Hungary, Morocco, Singapore and Venezuela.

The concluding observations and recommendations on the reports will be available on the Committee’s webpage from next week.

During the session the Committee held its day of general discussion on “Digital media and children’s rights” in the Palais des Nations. On Wednesday 24 September 2014, the Committee will celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Convention with an on-line event with conversations between children from several countries around the world and Committee members. The programme for the celebrations can be found here.

Other work carried out during the session included discussions on the process of the strengthening of human rights treaty bodies, in line with the General Assembly resolution 68/268, adopted in April 2014. The Committee decided to adopt in principle a simplified reporting procedure, and to offer this optional procedure to States Parties in 2016 having first reduced the backlog of reports awaiting consideration in 2015; to follow the format of concluding observations proposed by the Chairperson’s meeting and to work to reduce the word length of concluding observations by 20 per cent of the current average length by the end of 2015; and to appoint a member of the Committee as rapporteur on reprisals to deal with allegations of reprisals against individuals and groups on the basis of their cooperation with the Committee.

The Committee is a body of independent experts formed in 1991 to monitor the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by its States parties. The Convention gives a comprehensive collection of children's rights the force of international law. The Committee also monitors implementation of two Optional Protocols to the Convention: on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. A third Optional Protocol on a communications procedure was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 19 December 2011 and entered into force on 14 April 2014. It allows individual children to submit complaints about specific violations of their human rights under the Convention and its first two Optional Protocols.

As at 19 September 2014, the closing date of the sixty-seventh session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, there are 194 States parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. As at the same date, the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict had been ratified or acceded to by 156 States parties and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography had been ratified or acceded to by 168 States parties (one more since the beginning of the session: Haiti). The third optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure remained at 11 ratifications.

The Committee will hold its sixty-eighth session from 12 to 30 January 2015 at the Palais Wilson in Geneva, when it will consider the reports of Colombia, Dominican Republic, Gambia, Iraq, Jamaica, Mauritius, Sweden, Switzerland, Turkmenistan, United Republic of Tanzania, Uruguay under the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

The programmes of work, agenda and all documentation relating to the Committee can be found on its webpage.


For use of the information media; not an official record

CRC14/015E