UN child rights committee to review Zambia on 22 January (Please note date change)

GENEVA (19 January  2016) – The review of Zambia by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child will now take place on Friday 22 January, not on Wednesday 20 January as originally scheduled.

The CRC’s meeting with the Zambian delegation will take place in Room XXIV at Palais des Nations in Geneva on 22 January from 10:00 - 18:00 (11:00 - 19:00 in Lusaka.) The sessions are public and will be webcast here: http://www.treatybodywebcast.org/.

Zambia is one of the 196 states that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child and so is required to undergo regular examinations of its record by the Committee of 18 independent experts. The Committee will base its evaluation on the delegation’s replies, as well as information from civil society groups.

These are among the possible issues to be discussed: Ensuring best interests of the child given due consideration in customary law; raising awareness of harmful effects of child marriage; sexual exploitation and abuse, adolescent pregnancies, high maternal mortality rate and neonatal deaths; measures to eliminate direct and indirect costs of education, high drop-out rates; measures to collect comprehensive disaggregated data on children; resources for the Office of the Commission on Children.

The full list of issues and Zambia’s submitted written report can be found here: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=924&Lang=en

The CRC will hold a news conference to discuss its findings on Zambia and the other countries being reviewed - Senegal, Iran, Oman, Latvia, France, Ireland, Haiti, Peru, Maldives, Zimbabwe, Benin, Brunei and Kenya – at 12:00 on 4 February at the Palais des Nations. The findings, officially called concluding observations, will be published on 4 February here: http://tbinternet.ohchr.org/_layouts/treatybodyexternal/SessionDetails1.aspx?SessionID=924&Lang=en

ENDS

For more information and media requests, please contact Liz Throssell +41 (0) 22 917 9466/ +41 79 752 0488 ethrossell@ohchr.org
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