Committee on the Rights of the Child

Seventy-six th session

Summary record (partial)* of the 2222nd meeting

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Monday 11, September 2017, at 10 a.m.

Chair:Ms. Winter

Contents

Opening of the session

Statement by the representative of the Secretary-General

Submission of reports by States parties

Organizational matters

Adoption of the agenda

The meeting was called to order at 10.10 a.m.

Opening of the session

The Chair declared open the seventy-sixth session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Statement by the representative of the Secretary-General

Mr. Nowosad (Chief of the Groups in Focus Section, Human Rights Treaties Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)) said that, during the previous two years, more than 8,000 refugees and migrants, including children, had perished or gone missing while trying to cross the Mediterranean. The vast majority of children who had arrived in Italy by sea recently had been unaccompanied. Various human rights bodies and agencies had denounced violations of children’s rights in the context of migration throughout the world. By the end of 2016, more than 65 million people worldwide had been forcibly displaced, including a record 22.5 million refugees fleeing war and persecution, more than half of them children.

During the thirty-fifth session of the Human Rights Council, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had stressed the need to listen to migrant children and adolescents and to build a global framework to ensure that future generations would be spared the hellish journeys that many of them currently faced. In that connection, the Committee’s work with the Committee on the Protection of the Rights of All Migrant Workers and Members of Their Families on two draft general comments was important. The draft general comments emphasized that all children caught up in the global migration crisis should be treated — first and foremost — as children. Activities undertaken to finalize the two documents included regional consultations, organized in cooperation with the United Nations Children’s Fund and other partners so as to ensure input from a broad range of stakeholders. The documents would be reviewed during the current session, with a view to their timely adoption by both Committees. It was hoped that the documents would serve to inform the United Nations Global Compact process, given that migration was an issue of great contemporary significance.

The number of communications submitted under the Optional Protocol on a communications procedure was rising, with more than 100 cases pending registration. The Committee had examined three cases concerning Spain and one concerning Costa Rica, and had declared all cases to be inadmissible. The fact that the total number of ratifications of the Optional Protocol had remained unchanged highlighted the need for awareness-raising measures.

The Committee’s current session would mark the launch of general comment No. 21 (2017) on children in street situations. Efforts were also underway to publish a child-friendly version of the text, written in plain language, to facilitate its dissemination, including among children in street situations.

With regard to the treaty body strengthening process, consultations had been organized recently by the International Service for Human Rights, with the support of the Permanent Missions of Switzerland and Costa Rica, on the political strategy ahead of the 2020 review of the treaty bodies. Their aim was to ensure that the review led to a more accessible, inclusive, efficient, effective and rights-oriented treaty body system. The consultations had covered the challenges faced by the treaty bodies, such as insufficient harmonization of working methods and poor State compliance with reporting and implementing obligations, as well as opportunities to establish a critical mass of relevant actors, including States, national institutions and civil society, in order to improve the effectiveness of the treaty body system. The report of the Secretary-General pursuant to General Assembly resolution 68/268 on strengthening and enhancing the effective functioning of the human rights treaty body system had been submitted to the General Assembly. The Advisory Committee on Administrative and Budgetary Questions would examine the request contained therein for additional support and meeting time and would issue its recommendations soon.

Topics discussed during the twenty-ninth meeting of the Chairs of the human rights treaty bodies had included late reporting and non-reporting States, procedures for following up on concluding observations and views, and a common approach to engagement with national human rights institutions. An unacceptably high percentage of reports submitted to the treaty bodies were overdue, particularly initial reports under the Committee’s Optional Protocols. The situation was less critical for reports under the Convention, however, progress in human rights required more than simply signing a document. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, through its treaty body capacity-building programme, sought to help States fulfil their reporting obligations with training-of-trainers workshops, support measures at national level and training programmes for State officials. A number of States had already taken advantage of the training available and had either submitted, or were in the process of submitting, their reports.

At intergovernmental level, the Human Rights Council continued its focus on child and youth rights. In addition to resolutions on the rights of the child in emergencies, on birth registration and the right of everyone to recognition everywhere as a person before the law, it had adopted resolution 32/1 on youth and human rights, which called for a detailed study on the implementation of the human rights of young people. An OHCHR study on the relationship between climate change and the enjoyment of the rights of the child had also recently been completed and submitted to the Human Rights Council. A meeting of experts had been organized by OHCHR and the World Health Organization (WHO) to share experiences of applying a human rights-based approach to the prevention of child mortality.

With regard to the Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, he noted that although various fundraising measures were being implemented, the level of State support for the Global Study had been disappointing.

In May 2017, the OHCHR-WHO High Level Working Group on the Health and Human Rights of Women, Children and Adolescents had presented its report and recommendations to the World Health Assembly. The report, entitled “Leading the realization of human rights to health and through health” was a call to action, based on the concept that health and human rights were inextricably linked, and that only bold leadership could ensure progress. The report also called for more enabling environments, for the right to health to be enshrined in national law and for health funding to be rights-based. It stressed that the success of the Sustainable Development Goals depended on the pursuit of an integrated agenda. WHO and OHCHR were preparing a joint work plan to identify areas where efforts to promote health and human rights could be supported in the context of treaty body work; there were plans to organize a workshop on that topic in October 2017.

Submission of reports by States parties

Ms. Franchetti (Secretary of the Committee) said that, since the previous session, eight reports had been submitted, six of which related to the implementation of the Convention from Niger, Guinea, Japan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Belgium and Italy. A total of 46 reports were pending consideration; that figure was expected to fall to 34 by the end of the current session. Three initial reports were overdue, namely those of Tonga, South Sudan and the State of Palestine. The number of States that had ratified the Convention remained unchanged at 196.

The number of ratifications of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict and the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography remained unchanged at 166 and 173, respectively. Two initial reports, namely those of Czechia and Saudi Arabia, had been submitted under the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. As no more States had signed the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, the number of ratifications still stood at 34.

Organizational matters

The Chair, reviewing the items on the agenda, said that the Committee would examine 13 reports submitted by eight States parties: Cyprus, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Denmark, Ecuador, Guinea, the Republic of Moldova, Tajikistan and Vanuatu.

She welcomed the many partners who contributed to the Committee’s work. Discussions would continue on the Committee’s methods of work, especially in connection with the Optional Protocol on a communications procedure, and the treaty body strengthening process, particularly the simplified reporting procedure. Any communications or information received relating to the Optional Protocol on a communications procedure would be considered. The Committee would start reviewing possible topics for the forthcoming day of general discussion, to be held in September 2018. It would continue to work with the Committee on Migrant Workers on a draft joint general comment on children in the context of migration and would discuss any other matters relating to its work.

Adoption of the agenda (CRC/C/76/1)

The agenda was adopted.

The discussion covered in the summary record ended at 10.35 a.m.