COMMITTEE ON RIGHTS OF CHILD HOLDS DISCUSSION WITH NON-GOVERNMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS

HR/CRC/98/12
15 January 1998


The Committee on the Rights of the Child this afternoon held a discussion with representatives of the Canadian Coalition for the Rights of the Child on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Canada.

The Canadian Coalition is a coalition of over 50 national non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that are concerned with the well-being of children. These organizations support the Convention and monitor its dissemination and implementation in Canada.

Representatives of the Coalition, Ms. Tara Collins and Ms. Susan West, told Committee members that their goals were to monitor the implementation of the Convention in Canada with respect to the country's domestic and international policies.

They also fostered education and awareness, particularly among youth, about the rights of children and the Convention.

The representatives further told the Committee that they had attempted to involve youth in the efforts of NGOs in Canada to develop and apply a framework towards monitoring the provisions of the Convention.

Committee members said they appreciated the efforts made by the Canadian Coalition to promote and protect children's rights and to monitor the implementation of the provisions of the Convention in Canada.

Another NGO, the Group for the Convention on the Rights of the Child - the Focal Point on Sexual Exploitation of Children, told the Committee that according to latest estimates by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), there were over one million children under the age of 18 world-wide who were exploited through prostitution each year.

Ms. Hélène Sackstein, coordinator of the Group, said that there was a sophisticated global market for trafficking in children for sexual exploitation purposes. This market had links with arms and drugs sales networks. Although prostitution and sex tourism were getting a high degree of visibility in the media and the public mind, the issue was much more complex that was generally assumed.

Another speaker from the Group said that sexual exploitation of children was not an isolated phenomenon or limited to certain circumstances, but it was integrated in all spheres of the society. Children with disabilities were more vulnerable to sexual exploitation.

A representative of the International Labour Office (ILO) told the Committee that her organization had drafted a convention to be discussed during its forthcoming June conference, on the question of sexual exploitation of children. The draft convention would emphasize the criminalization of sexual exploitation of children as an extreme form of child labour.

Tomorrow morning, Friday, 16 January, Committee members will participate in a seminar on sexual exploitation of children organized by NGOs and they will meet in private in the afternoon.