Committee on the Rights of the Child Closes Ninety-Fifth Session after Adopting Concluding Observations on the Reports of the Republic of the Congo, Bulgaria, Senegal, the Russian Federation, Lithuania and South Africa

The Committee on the Rights of the Child this afternoon concluded its ninety-fifth session after adopting concluding observations on the reports of the Republic of the Congo, Bulgaria, Senegal, the Russian Federation, Lithuania and South Africa. The concluding observations will be available on the session’s webpage on 8 February, 2024.

Ann Marie Skelton, Committee Chairperson, said that as of 2 February, there were 196 States parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, 173 States parties to the Optional Protocol on the involvement of children in armed conflict, 178 States parties to the Optional Protocol on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, and 51 States parties to the Optional Protocol on the communications procedure. Ms. Skelton said during the session, the hybrid service was discontinued without warning, and the Committee was concerned about the impact this would have on civil society participation moving forwards.

Ms. Skelton said the Committee had reviewed Bulgaria, Congo, Lithuania, Russian Federation, Senegal and South Africa, for which concluding observations were formally adopted. The Committee also adopted the report of its ninety-fifth session.

On individual communications, Ms. Skelton said the Committee had adopted decisions in 10 cases. It had found violations of the Convention in a case against Paraguay concerning judicial delays in affiliation proceedings, and in one case against Spain concerning lack of education of a Moroccan child living there. The Committee had also declared two cases against Argentina and Bosnia and Herzegovina, respectively, inadmissible. The Committee also discontinued six cases against Argentina, Finland and Türkiye, due to positive outcomes, and three against Finland and Switzerland, due to a loss of contact with the authors.

During the session, the Committee started drafting its new general comment 27 on realising children’s rights through access to justice and effective remedies.

Rinchen Chophel, Committee Vice-Chair and Rapporteur, presented a report on the activities of the Committee’s working groups and the individual members of the Committee during the session and in the inter-sessional period.

Ms. Skelton thanked the Committee members, members of the Secretariat, and all those who had made the ninety-fifth session possible, before closing the session.

Summaries of the public meetings of the Committee can be found here, while webcasts of the public meetings can be found here. The programme of work of the Committee’s ninety-fifth session and other documents related to the session can be found here.

The Committee will hold its ninety-sixth session from 6 to 24 May 2024, when it is scheduled to review the reports of Bhutan, Egypt, Estonia, Georgia, Guatemala, Mali, Namibia and Paraguay.

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