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

The Committee on the Rights of the Child today concluded its sixty-fifth session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Congo, Yemen, Holy See, Portugal, Russian Federation and Germany under the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols.

The concluding observations and recommendations on the reports will be available on the Committee’s webpage on Wednesday, 5 February at noon.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay addressed the Committee’s opening meeting, saying that 2014 would mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of the adoption of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which was ratified by more countries than any other human rights convention in the world, as only three countries had not ratified it. She added that the Committee had an essential role to play as it was an agent of change on the ground, thanks to its dialogue with States parties and its elaboration of pertinent and applicable recommendations.

The Committee Chairperson, Kristen Sandberg, noted at the opening meeting that a Day of General Discussion would be held at the sixty-seventh session of the Committee, on 12 September 2014, at the Palais des Nations under the theme of “media, social networks and rights of children”.

At the closing meeting, Ms. Sandberg said that during the session, the Committee had continued its work on a joint General Comment with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women on harmful traditional practices. It had also discussed topics for new General Comments. The Committee adopted its report for the session.

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. It will allow individual children to submit complaints about specific violations of their human rights under the Convention and its first two Optional Protocols. The Protocol opened for signature on 28 February 2012 and Costa Rica became on 14 January 2014 the tenth country to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure, meaning that it will enter into force on 14 April 2014.

The Committee will hold its sixty-sixth session from 26 May to 13 June 2014 at the Palais Wilson in Geneva, when the Committee will consider the reports of India, Indonesia, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, Saint Lucia and United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland under the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its two Optional Protocols.

For use of the information media; not an official record

CRC14/003E