Committee on the Rights of the Child concludes sixty-ninth session

ROUNDUP

5 June 2015

The Committee on the Rights of the Child today concluded its sixty-ninth session after adopting its concluding observations and recommendations on the reports of Eritrea, Mexico, Ghana, Honduras, Ethiopia, Netherlands, Lao People’s Democratic Republic and Israel under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its Optional Protocols.

The concluding observations and recommendations on the reports will be available on the Committee’s webpage from 2 p.m. on Wednesday, 10 June 2015.

The Committee met in dual chambers at the Palais Wilson in Geneva from 18 May to 5 June 2015. It accepted Nepal’s request to postpone the review of its combined third to fifth periodic report and its initial report under the Optional Protocol on Children in Armed Conflict because of the devastating earthquake that struck the country on 25 April.

At the opening of the session the Committee elected Benyam Dawit Mezmur as its new Chairperson, and Yasmeen Muhamad Shariff, Sara de Jesús Oviedo Fierro, Renate Winter and Amal Aldoseri as Vice-Chairpersons. Ms. Sandberg was also elected as Rapporteur. Suzanne Aho Assouma, Hynd Ayoubi Idrissi, Clarence Nelson
and José Angel Rodríguez Reyes made their solemn declarations as new members of the Committee.

During the session, the Committee, in addition to considering 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 three general comments on public spending to realize children’s rights; adolescents; and children in street situations. It also held an informal meeting with States. The Committee also decided to consider the elaboration of a new joint general comment, together with the Committee on the Protection of Migrant Workers and their Families (CMW) on Children in the context of migration. The Committee reviewed its first communication under the Optional Protocol under a communications procedure. It decided that this communication was inadmissible under article 7 (g) of the Optional Protocol.

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

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.

Meeting summaries, in English and French, of all the countries reviewed this session can be found here: http://www.unog.ch.

The Committee will hold its seventieth session in Geneva from 14 September to 2 October 2015, during which it will review reports on the Convention or its Optional Protocols from the following States: Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Madagascar, Poland, Timor-Leste and United Arab Emirates.

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For use of the information media; not an official record