Committee on the Rights of the Child Opens Eighty-Ninth Session
The Committee on the Rights of the Child this morning opened its eighty-ninth session, adopting its agenda and programme of work for the session, during which it will review the reports of Madagascar and Netherlands under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
In his address to the Committee, Orest Nowosad, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, congratulated the Committee for advancing its work on the draft general comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change. Reviewing recent developments regarding the rights of the child at the intergovernmental level, Mr. Nowosad noted that an upcoming Human Rights Council resolution would focus on the rights of the child and family reunification, which would also be the theme of the next annual full-day meeting of the Council on the rights of the child, scheduled for 9 March. The decision by the Office of the Secretary-General to develop a Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming, which the Office of the High Commissioner would co-lead in developing, reflected the importance of reinforcing a holistic child rights perspective across the United Nations system at all levels, in line with a human rights-based approach.
The Committee then heard statements from representatives of the Office of the United Nations Children’s Fund, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Child Rights Connect on behalf of civil society, and the Committee Secretariat.
Mikiko Otani, Committee Chairperson, said it was to the Committee’s deep regret that its first session of 2022 was disrupted again by the COVID-19 pandemic, being cut by half, yet noted positively that the Committee could hold its eighty-ninth session in person for two weeks. Since the conclusion of its last session, highlights of the Committee’s activities included progress on the drafting process of general comment 26 on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change. In all areas of the Committee’s activities, collaboration with other United Nations human rights bodies and also with civil society had been a clear trend, and to encourage more children all over the world to participate in the work of the Committee, a new video message in English, French and Spanish was launched on the 2021 World Children’s Day.
The eighty-ninth session of the Committee is currently scheduled to run from 31 January to 11 February 2022. All the documents relating to the Committee’s work, including reports submitted by States parties, can be found on the session’s webpage. The webcast of the Committee’s public meetings is available here.
The Committee will next meet in public on Tuesday, 1 February, at 3 p.m. to begin its consideration of the combined fifth and sixth periodic report of the Netherlands under the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC/C/NLD/5-6).
Statements
OREST NOWOSAD, Chief of the Groups in Focus Section of the Human Rights Council and Treaty Mechanisms Division at the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, noted that the meeting rooms had been equipped with technology integrating interpretation and webcasting on the same digital platform, underscoring that the innovation represented a concrete step in the Office’s digitalisation of all human rights mechanisms. Noting that postponements of the Committee’s work had a negative impact on the growing backlog of reports to be reviewed, he added that the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic was also proving to be an increasing challenge to the lives of children worldwide, increasing the numbers of children affected by hunger, violence, poverty, mental health issues, forced marriage, and difficult access to education, among other issues. The continuing monitoring by the Committee in that regard was crucial.
2022 marked the twentieth anniversaries of the entry into force of the first two Optional Protocols of the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, said Mr. Nowosad. Two events would take place between the end of February and March, each on one protocol respectively. An online panel discussion on 24 February would reflect on the achievements of the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography in the past 20 years, and what was needed to secure its implementation within the current context. More information on related events would be available soon on the Committee’s webpage.
Congratulating the Committee for advancing its work on the draft general comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change, Mr. Nowosad noted that together with its partners, the Committee would organise thematic consultations in February and March on topics ranging from the right to a healthy environment, ensuring a child rights-based approach to climate change, education and environmental rights, and access to justice and remedies to intergenerational equity and inequality resulting from environmental harm. A Children’s Advisory Team would be announced soon, following a global call for applications that closed earlier in January. A draft general comment was scheduled to be ready for public consultation later in 2022.
At a meeting in November 2021 with the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Chairs of the treaty bodies had discussed the treaty body strengthening process. The Chairs had outlined their proposals, including on the development of a predictable review calendar and the ongoing harmonisation of working methods.
The High Commissioner had urged the development of a consolidated and unified proposal, encouraging the Chairs that the proposal should be bold and creative, demonstrating the engagement of all Committees in order to further strengthen and rationalise the treaty body system, and attract the necessary support and funding from Member States.
Reviewing recent developments regarding the rights of the child at the intergovernmental level, Mr. Nowosad noted that the upcoming Human Rights Council resolution would focus on the rights of the child and family reunification, which would also be the theme of the next annual full-day meeting of the Council on the rights of the child, scheduled for 9 March. In October 2021, the Office of the Secretary-General had decided to develop a Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming, which the Office of the High Commissioner would co-lead in developing, together with the United Nations Children’s Fund and other relevant bodies, in coordination with the Committee, civil society, and children themselves. The decision reflected the importance of reinforcing a holistic child rights perspective across the United Nations system at all levels, in line with a human rights-based approach and system-wide initiatives, including the Secretary-General’s Common Agenda and Call to Action for Human Rights.
United Nations Children’s Fund said that it was preparing a document articulating the various dimensions of policing assemblies involving children, to inform guidance on the topic. The development of guidance on child rights legislative reform was also under way, with a goal of producing a website providing guidance to States, United Nations entities and civil society on how best to carry out child rights legislative reform – in terms of both substance and process. Other priorities included programmatic guidance on child rights and sexual orientation, gender identity, expression and sex characteristics, and on child rights and hate speech. In 2022, the Children’s Fund was starting to work under a new strategic plan, which like previous ones was guided by the Committee. That plan, which acknowledged that the human rights of children were under threat to a degree that had not been seen in more than a generation, was informed by the voices of 200,000 children, communities, governments, United Nations sister agencies, the private sector, civil society and other partners. The Children’s Committee was concerned at the cancellation of most of the dialogues with State parties of the eighty-ninth session of the Committee. That decision’s impact on the credibility and timeliness of the reporting process itself was worrying, as was its impact on the national child rights strategies and plans that were designed with the timing of the session in mind.
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights underscored the importance of the decision of the Secretary-General to develop a system-wide guidance note on child rights mainstreaming. The process would involve strong civil society and child participation, and the Committee’s role in developing the guidance note was particularly welcomed. At the upcoming session of the Human Rights Council, the High Commissioner’s report on the rights of the child and family reunification would be presented, which relied on valuable input from the Committee. A patchwork approach to family reunification was failing children who had been separated from their families. Gaps needed to be tackled urgently, and States should follow up with a global strategy based on the rights of the child. Among other priorities for the Office was the upcoming report to the 2022 High-Level Forum on Sustainable Development, as well as a report, mandated by the Human Rights Council, on the human rights implications of the COVID-19 pandemic on young people, exploring the challenges they were facing and best practices for assisting them with overcoming those challenges.
Child Rights Connect, speaking on behalf of civil society, expressed concern at the last-minute cancellation of the first two weeks of the eighty-ninth session of the Committee. The significant decrease in the number of State reviews was particularly worrying given the increasing backlog and the negative impact of the pandemic on the advocacy work of civil society. The Committee and the Office of the High Commissioner were urged to explore all possible ways to catch up on the backlog, and to communicate with civil society to enable their effective engagement with the reporting process. The Secretary-General’s decision to develop a guidance note on child rights mainstreaming was a welcome step in addressing the lack of a system-wide approach to child rights in the United Nations, and civil society was currently waiting for information about the process leading to the drafting and publication of the guidance note, and looked forward to supporting the inter-agency process and collaborating with the Committee, including by mobilising and supporting the engagement of children and civil society organizations.
MIKIKO OTANI, Chair of the Committee, said it was to the Committee’s deep regret that its first session of 2022 was disrupted again by the COVID-19 pandemic, being cut by half. However, she was pleased that the Committee could hold its eighty-ninth session in person for two weeks. The Committee was planning to add one week to its ninetieth and ninety-first sessions during 2022, in consultation with the Office of High Commissioner for Human Rights and the United Nations Office at Geneva. Since the conclusion of the Committee’s last session, highlights of its activities had included progress on the drafting process of general comment 26 on children’s rights and the environment, with a special focus on climate change. The online consultation that started in December 2021 had been receiving an unprecedentedly high number of responses so far, and the child online consultation was scheduled to start in February 2022. The Committee had also been active in co-organising events on child rights issues, including a side event of the seventy-sixth session of the United Nations General Assembly with Amnesty International and Child Rights Connect emphasising the need for coordinated United Nations system-wide support to States to implement the Committee’s recommendations. Other highlights included issuing two joint statements with the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, respectively on the occasion of the International Day of the Girl Child, and on children born of conflict-related rape and their mothers. In all areas of the Committee’s activities, collaboration with other United Nations human rights bodies and also with civil society had been a clear trend, and to encourage more children all over the world to participate in the work of the Committee, a new video message in English, French and Spanish was launched on the 2021 World Children’s Day.
Committee Secretariat informed about reports received since the last session in September and October 2021. Six reports had been received by the Secretariat of the Committee since the eighty-eighth session, bringing the number of reports pending consideration to 80. Under its simplified reporting procedure, the Committee had received three reports, from Sweden, Maldives and New Zealand, respectively. Sixty periodic reports were overdue, of which six were more than five years overdue, and eight were more than 10 years overdue. Since the Committee’s last session, Suriname had ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the involvement of children in armed conflict, bringing the total number of ratifications to 172. Also under the Optional Protocol on children and armed conflict, the Committee had received the initial report of Romania, as well as the fifth periodic report of the United States. Yet 38 initial reports under that protocol were overdue, with 19 more than five years overdue, and 17 more than 10 years overdue. Under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, the Committee had received the fifth periodic report of the United States. Under that protocol, 52 reports were overdue, of which 22 were more than five years overdue, and 28 were more than 10 years overdue.
MIKIKO OTANI, Chair of the Committee, said the Committee during its session would consider the fifth and sixth periodic reports under the Convention of Madagascar and of the Netherlands, respectively, with the States parties delegations appearing online. Outlining the rest of the Committee’s provisional agenda, she noted that included continued work on a new general comment on children’s rights and the environment, with a focus on climate change as a working title, inter alia.
The Committee then adopted its agenda for its eighty-ninth session.
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