COMMITTEE ON THE RIGHTS OF THE CHILD CONCLUDES SEVENTIETH SESSION

The Committee on the Rights of the Child today concluded its seventieth session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Poland, Timor-Leste and the United Arab Emirates under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols.

The Committee met in dual chambers at the Palais Wilson in Geneva from 14 September to 2 October 2015. The Committee considered twelve reports in total during its seventieth session. The concluding observations and recommendations on the reports will be made available on the Committee’s webpage on Wednesday, 7 October 2015.

During the session, the Committee, in addition to considering the reports of States parties, discussed the organization of its future work and methods of work, especially those concerning the Optional Protocol on a communications procedure, and continued its discussion on the follow-up to the treaty body strengthening process. The Committee continued its work on four General comments on public spending to realize children’s rights; adolescents; children in street situations; and children in the context of migration, which was a joint general comment with the Committee on the Protection of Migrant Workers and their Families.

At the closing of the session, the Committee decided that the following Day of General Discussion would be held in September 2016, on the theme “The right of the child to a healthy environment”.

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 2 October 2015, the closing date of the seventieth session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, there are 196 States parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The latest country to ratify the Convention was Somalia, on 1 October 2015. 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 161 States parties. 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 171 States parties. The Bahamas and Haiti had ratified both Optional Protocols in the course of the seventieth session. The third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure had been ratified by 19 States; Mongolia had ratified it during the seventieth session of the Committee.


Meeting summaries, in English and French, of all the States parties reviewed during this session can be found here.

The Committee will hold its seventy-first session in Geneva from 11 to 29 January 2016, during which it will review reports on the Convention or its Optional Protocols from the following States: Benin, Brunei Darussalam, France, Gabon, Haiti, Iran, Ireland, Kenya, Latvia, Maldives, Oman, Peru, Senegal, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.


For use of the information media; not an official record

CRC15/045E