Committee on the Rights of the Child

Fifty-third session

Summary record of the first part (public)* of the 1454th meeting

Held at the Palais Wilson, Geneva, on Monday, 11 January 2010, at 10 a.m.

Chairperson:Ms. Lee

Contents

Opening of the session

Statement by the representative of the Secretary-General

Adoption of the agenda

Organizational matters

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

Opening of the session

1.The Chairperson declared open the fifty-third session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

Statement by the representative of the Secretary-General

2.Ms. Morales (Officer-in-Charge, Human Rights Treaties Division, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) brought a number of new developments which had taken place since the previous session of the Committee in October 2009 to the attention of the Committee. Pursuant to Human Rights Council resolution 11/1, the open-ended working group on an optional protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child to provide a communications procedure had met from 14 to 18 December 2009. The Committee members who had participated in the meeting would undoubtedly provide their colleagues with information about their deliberations. On 20 November 2009, the General Assembly had adopted the Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children put forward by the Human Rights Council.

3.The year 2010 marked the twentieth anniversary of the entry into force of the Convention and would provide further impetus to activities to strengthen the implementation of the Convention and its two optional protocols. The Human Rights Council had decided to dedicate an annual full-day meeting to examining specific issues relating to the rights of the child. The second full-day meeting, which was to be held in March 2010 during the thirteenth session of the Council, would focus on the issue of sexual violence against children. The manner in which the Committee would contribute to that day had yet to be decided.

4.With regard to the harmonization of the working methods of the treaty bodies, the eleventh inter-committee meeting, which was to take place at the end of June, would focus on the lists of issues and targeted reports. As had been suggested at the tenth inter-committee meeting, the second of the two annual inter-committee meetings would take the form of a working group which would focus on strengthening follow-up activities. It was clear that, paradoxically, the success of the human rights protection system, as exemplified by the increase in the number of human rights instruments and their respective monitoring bodies, as well as greater compliance by States parties with reporting obligations, placed greater demands on the treaty bodies. In view of that fact, in September of the previous year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights had called on States and all relevant stakeholders to seek ways to streamline and strengthen the treaty body system, to make it more coherent and effective.

5.The Committee had already successfully conducted its work in two chambers to reduce the backlog of reports for review. However, that method further increased the Committee’s workload and that of the secretariat. Therefore, the Committee would need to find other methods of handling the very large number of reports submitted by State parties.

Adoption of the agenda (CRC/C/53/1)

6.The agenda was adopted.

Organizational matters

7.T he Chairperson said that, under agenda item 4, the Committee would need to examine 18 reports submitted by 12 States parties. In view of the backlog of reports, the Committee would not hold any general debate in 2010. Under agenda item 8, the Committee would consider drawing up two general comments, one relating to article 3 (the best interests of the child) and the other relating to article 19 (violence and abuse) of the Convention.

8.In view of the fact that 2010 marked the tenth anniversary of the adoption of the two optional protocols to the Convention, she hoped that the Committee would redouble its efforts to encourage States to implement those two important instruments.

9.The fifty-fourth session of the Committee would start on 25 May 2010.

The public part of the meeting rose at 10.30 a.m.