Committee on the Rights of the Child Opens Ninety-Sixth Session

The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning opened its ninety-sixth session, being held in Geneva from 6 to 24 May, during which it will review reports on the efforts to adhere to the Convention on the Rights of the Child of Bhutan, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, Guatemala, Mali, Namibia and Paraguay, as well as on Panama’s efforts to implement the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

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 he was opening the ninety-sixth session with a heavy heart, knowing that close to half a billion children were currently living in conflict zones around the world, double the number from 1990.  In many places, armed conflicts had coincided with disease outbreaks, food insecurity and natural disasters, which disproportionately impacted children.  This situation highlighted the importance and necessity of the Committee’s mandate.

Mr. Ori said he was very pleased to learn that the Committee’s next general comment would focus on children’s right to access to justice and effective remedies.  Access to justice and to effective remedies was essential for the protection, promotion and fulfilment of all children’s rights.  He urged partners, colleagues, fellow children’s rights activists and children to participate in the process and to share their expertise and experiences.

Ann Marie Skelton, Committee Chair, said that over the last year, the Committee had highlighted grave violations of children’s rights in situations of armed conflict around the globe. Children were increasingly feeling the impacts of displacement and there was a hardening attitude in many receiving States regarding asylum seeker and migrant children.  Earlier this week, the Committee issued a statement jointly with the Special Rapporteur on the rights of migrants, together with other treaty bodies and procedures, calling for an end to the detention of migrant children.

Ms. Skelton expressed concern that the Committee was currently in a situation in which it could not carry out its mandate properly because the means to do so had been denied of it. The pre-sessional working group that usually followed the three-week session had been cancelled.  It was also of grave concern that there was at this stage no guarantee that the Committee’s third session of this year, as well as the pre-sessional working group, would take place.  Several States had paid their assessed contributions to the United Nations regular budget during March and April 2024 and the Committee hoped that this trend would increase and bring the liquidity crisis to an end.

Before adopting the session’s agenda, the Committee also heard statements from representatives of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations Children's Fund, Child Rights Connect and the Secretary of the Committee.

Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, and webcasts of the public meetings can be found here.  The programme of work of the Committee’s ninety-sixth session and other documents related to the session can be found here.

The Committee will next meet in public at 3 p.m. this afternoon to consider the combined fourth to sixth periodic report of Namibia (CRC/C/NAM/4-6).

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 it was an honour to open the ninety-sixth session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, but he did do so with a heavy heart, knowing that one child in every five was still living in a conflict zone.  From the State of Palestine to Ukraine, Haiti, Sudan, Yemen, the Sahel, the Democratic Republic of Congo, close to half a billion children were currently living in conflict zones around the world, which was double the number from 1990.  Children had been injured, killed or abused, had lost family members and friends, been forcibly displaced, recruited and used by armed forces, and were suffering from trauma.

In many places, armed conflicts had coincided with other devastating crises such as disease outbreaks, food insecurity and natural disasters, which again disproportionately impacted children.  In Sudan, 14 million children needed humanitarian assistance and more than three million children were on the move, making the Sudan home to the largest child displacement crisis in the world. Nearly 13 million children in Afghanistan, six million children in Myanmar and three million children in Haiti, required humanitarian assistance.  These times only further highlighted the relevance, importance and necessity of the Committee’s mandate.  The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights remained committed to supporting the Committee’s work, ensuring that the voices of these and all children were heard, and that States were held accountable for their failure to protect children’s rights.

The Office shared the Committee’s concerns about the United Nations' current financial crisis and its consequences on the work of the human rights treaty bodies.  With  strong support from the High Commissioner, it had done its utmost to ensure the organisation of treaty body sessions, despite the heavy impact of the liquidity crisis. It had been able to secure sufficient funding for all Committees to have their second sessions this year and also for the thirty-sixth annual meeting of the Chairs to take place in New York during this crucial year of treaty body reform.  In contrast, it had not, regrettably, been able to secure funds for pre-sessional working groups in connection with these second sessions of the year, which had directly affected the Committee’s work.  Mr. Ori said he hoped that the third session could also be held, but this would depend on the forthcoming developments on the liquidity situation.

The liquidity crisis was unpredictable and required intensive managing efforts, but the Office did not leave any stone unturned to limit its impact on the treaty bodies as much as possible. The letter of the Chairs and Vice-Chairs to the President of the General Assembly sent from their informal meeting in Madrid – highlighting that the risk of suspension of treaty body sessions for the first time in their over six decades of history for financial reasons and of visits to prevent torture and other human rights violations, would cause concrete and irreversible harm – represented very welcome advocacy work and helped the Office with our efforts. 

Mr. Ori said he was very pleased to learn that the Committee’s next general comment would focus on children’s right to access to justice and effective remedies.  Access to justice and to effective remedies was essential for the protection, promotion and fulfilment of all children’s rights.  It related not only to children in the justice system, but to all children as rights-holders, and it was a right that was essential for ensuring their empowerment and protection.  He urged partners, colleagues, fellow children’s rights activists and children to participate in the process and to share their expertise and experiences.

Since the Committee’s ninety-fifth session, the work to obtain tangible results in the treaty body strengthening process had advanced.  The Office’s efforts to secure a General Assembly resolution in December 2024 had continued with outreach in Geneva and New York to further garner support among States.  Treaty body Chairs and Vice-Chairs had done their part at their informal meeting in Madrid in February of this year, which provided them with an opportunity to move ahead with the preparation of the thirty-sixth annual Chairs’ meeting in June in New York.  The Office of the High Commissioner had also updated its website on the treaty body strengthening process and published two new documents: an analytical summary of States’ preferences regarding the treaty body strengthening process, and an updated Working Paper on options and guiding questions for the development of a plan to implement the conclusions of the thirty-fourth meeting of the human rights treaty body chairs, to reflect discussions during this briefing last November.

The Annual Day meeting on the rights of the child at the Human Rights Council took place on 14 March and focused on two panels on inclusive social protection and child rights mainstreaming. Vasile, a 17-year-old child advocate, remarked during the latter panel: “If children have opportunities to take part in the decision-making process, this will help them to develop a spirit of active citizenship and ensure their meaningful engagement. Children can be a part of democracy, not only learn about it from books.”  Mr. Ori said Vasile’s words served as inspiration for the Committee’s important work in urging States to involve children in all decision-making processes affecting them.  The Council also adopted the biennial child rights resolution, which focused on child rights and social protection.  This resolution urged all States to ensure that all children had access to inclusive social protection and noted with appreciation the Guidance Note of the Secretary-General on Child Rights Mainstreaming.  It further decided that the next Annual Day meeting would focus on early childhood development.  For the first time, Member States had agreed to fund participation of children as a standing requirement of the Annual Day meeting going forward. Mr. Ori thanked colleagues and partners who had worked tirelessly to make such a milestone possible.

During this busy session, the Committee would consider the reports of nine States parties from diverse regions of the world, as well as a number of communications and inquiries under the Optional Protocol of the Convention on a Communications procedure, which was now ten years old.  Mr. Ori closed by wishing the Committee a successful and productive session.

ANN MARIE SKELTON, Committee Chair, said the current crisis facing children in war was one that the Committee had drawn attention to in several statements during the last year. It had highlighted the grave violations of children’s rights in situations of armed conflict around the globe: the impact on their lives, their bodies, their minds, their development, their prospects for the future.  But while war was dominating the news, it was not the only crisis children were facing. Children were increasingly feeling the impacts of displacement, and the trends in the response to migrant children was a concern.  Climate change was another concern.  Just this week, dozens of children died in floods in Kenya and Brazil, and many hundreds were displaced, while Vietnam recorded all-time temperature highs. Children continued to be at the forefront of attempts to fight for a clean, healthy and sustainable environment. The outcome in the recent Agostinho case decided by the European Court of Human Rights may have been a disappointment to the young people involved in the case, but the Committee encouraged them. The awareness raising brought about the case was still worth the effort and was inspiring for other child human rights defenders around the world. 

As displacement and migration rose in the world, many tragic stories about children were unfolding.  This week saw the death of seven-year-old Sara on a small boat in the English Channel.  At the same time, there was a hardening attitude in many receiving States regarding asylum seeker and migrant children.  Earlier this week, the Committee issued a statement jointly with the Special Rapporteur on the rights of migrants, together with other treaty bodies and procedures, calling for an end to the detention of migrant children.

Monitoring all children’s rights in all States that had ratified the Convention was the Committee’s core mandate.  But it was currently in a situation in which it could not carry out its mandate properly. It could not properly shoulder its share of the burden of children’s rights violations because the means to do so had been denied of it.  Ms. Skelton thanked all who had spoken out about this, including former members of the Committee and civil society organisations. 

The pre-sessional working group that usually followed the three-week session had been cancelled. To mitigate this, the Committee had added meetings with stakeholders from Argentina and Ecuador to the last week of the session.  These States were chosen because they followed the simplified reporting procedure and the Committee planned to review them in September. Since February this year, the Committee also did not have access to an online platform for engagement with civil society.  That sudden decision left civil society without a voice.  The shrinking space for civil society involvement in the work of the Committee was highly regrettable.  This situation was unsustainable.  The Committee appreciated the strong support of the High Commissioner and the statement that no stone was left unturned in the battle to limit the impact of the liquidity crisis.  But it was of grave concern that there was at this stage no guarantee that the Committee’s third session of this year, its ninety-seventh, scheduled for 26 August to 13 September 2024, as well as the pre-sessional working group, would take place. The States that were scheduled for review by the Committee in the next session were Argentina, Armenia, Ecuador, Eritrea, Honduras, Israel, Mexico, Slovakia, Turkmenistan and Bahrain. Several States had paid their assessed contributions to the United Nations regular budget during March and April 2024 and the Committee hoped that this trend would increase and bring the liquidity crisis to an end.

Ms. Skelton said the Committee recognised that there were still many committed individuals working to uphold and advance children’s rights, including child human rights defenders, civil society organizations, national human rights institutions and children’s rights commissioners, United Nations agencies, academics and practitioners. There were also States that continued to make positive advances.  Scotland was making strides in its full incorporation of the Convention; the United Kingdom Government published a 200-page response to the Committee’s concluding observations.  The Committee was pleased that on 30 April 2024, End Corporal Punishment Day, the Democratic Republic of Lao and Sri Lanka became the sixty-sixth and sixty-seventh States in the world to prohibit violence in all settings.  It was also delighted that Bhutan has inoculated 99.6 per cent of its child population against deadly diseases.  Finally, the Committee was happy that the General Assembly had declared 11 June to be the International Day of Play.

IMMA GUERRAS, United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, despite some complex negotiations, the Human Rights Council resolution on the rights of the child of 28 March 2024 was a success on many fronts.  It was the first time that the Council agreed to fund the participation of children as a standing requirement for the Annual Day going forward, and it also supported the Office of the High Commissioner by increasing its capacity on child rights. In addition, the resolution decided that the next Human Rights Council Annual Day would focus on early childhood development and requested for the first time that the High Commissioner report to the Council on violations of the human rights of children in armed conflicts.  The resolution also noted with appreciation the Guidance Note of the Secretary General on Child Rights Mainstreaming and requested the High Commissioner to report to the Council on child rights mainstreaming across the United Nations. The resolution also contained a paragraph inviting all Human Rights Treaty Bodies to mainstream child rights, including consulting children.  Child rights expertise in the accountability and investigations branch was also a priority of the High Commissioner.

Ms. Guerras informed of several upcoming activities and initiatives, including an expert panel at the Council’s fifty-seventh session on developing accessible, inclusive, equitable and quality education for peace and tolerance for every child; an upcoming study and High Commissioner’s report on the use of digital technologies to achieve universal birth registration, to be presented at the Council’s fifty-eighth session; and a possible resolution to establish an Inter-Governmental Working Group to deliberate on the elaboration of a new Committee Optional Protocol on Education. The Office of the High Commissioner continued to support the preparations for the 2025 World Congress on Justice with Children.  Through the support of Education Above All Foundation, the network of youth officers would be extended to other countries, including the West Bank and Colombia. The Office was also working on the preparation of a detailed study, requested by the Council resolution on youth and human rights, on solutions to promote digital education for young people, to be presented to the Council prior to its fifty-seventh session.

ANNE GRANDJEAN, United Nations Children's Fund, expressed deep concern at the impact of the United Nations liquidity crisis, including the cancellation of the pre-session.  At the March session of the Human Rights Council, children’s rights continued to be at the centre of entrenched disagreements between States.  Of 34 resolutions presented during the session, the resolution on the rights of the child was the only one that received hostile amendments, an indication of the highly sensitive nature of the matter. During these debates, States promoting a rights-based approach relied on the statement of the Committee on article 5 of the Convention developed last year.  The recognition of children’s civil and political rights faced active pushback at the Council, with some States questioning the fact that children held this category of rights.  To contribute awareness-raising, the United Nations Children’s Fund organised an event on children’s right to freedom of peaceful assembly together with the Committee and other partners. 

The United Nations Children’s Fund welcomed and strongly supported the Committee’s decision to focus its new general comment on children’s access to justice and right to remedy.  Over the past couple of months, guidance for the United Nations Children’s Fund programming in country had been reviewed to reflect a human rights-based approach more explicitly, and a week-long training on the guidance was completed by staff across all regions and multiple country contexts.  An online, mandatory training course for all staff was under development and scheduled to be launched by the end of the year.  A Global Child Rights Advocacy Strategy, which aimed to reassert the independent status of children as full rights-holders, was also under development and expected to be finalised within the next quarter.  A website offering guidance to States on child rights legislative reform, developed with the University of Leiden, was now finalised and was expected to go live next week. 

ALEX CONTE, Child Rights Connect, said on 10 April, Child Rights Connect had issued a letter expressing deep concern about the liquidity situation of the United Nations, joined by almost 200 organisations from around the world.  The cancellation of the pre-session meeting, on top of the announcement in January of the cancellation of hybrid arrangements for United Nations human rights bodies and mechanisms, affected the possibilities for children and civil society to interact with this Committee and contribute to their work. It was worrying that global trends of shrinking civil society space were clearly materialising at the United Nations level.  Nevertheless, the Committee's efforts to schedule pre-sessional meetings for two countries during the session were welcomed, as an exceptional measure in exceptional circumstances.

At a time when the work of the Committee continued to be more crucial than ever amidst the multitude of crises disproportionately affecting children, it was hoped that additional solutions could be explored to minimise the impact of the pre-session cancellation and to ensure reduction of the Committee’s backlog.  Strengthening joint efforts to ensure implementation of the Secretary-General’s Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming would be key to mobilising the United Nations system to collectively strengthen a shared United Nations child rights agenda, including through meaningful and effective child participation.  Mr. Conte thanked Committee members who had provided feedback to develop Child Rights Connect’s new Strategic Plan for 2025-2029.  A second round of consultations had been completed and the final draft of the strategy was being prepared, which would be shared with the Committee.

ALLEGRA FRANCHETTI, Secretary of the Committee, said that five reports had been received since the last session from Burundi, Equatorial Guinea, Peru, Spain and Gambia, bringing the total number of reports pending consideration to 74.  The total number of ratifications of the Convention remained at 196, while 64 periodic reports were overdue.  Thirteen States - Angola, Bolivia, China, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Egypt, Iraq, Kuwait, Mexico, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Syria and United Arab Emirates – had opted out of the simplified reporting procedure.  Since the last session, Kazakhstan had ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on a communications procedure, bringing the total number of ratifications to 52.  No new reports had been received under the Optional Protocols since the last session; 36 initial reports were overdue under the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, and 47 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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