Annual full day meeting on Protection on the Rights of the Child in the Implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

       Opening statement by Ms. Kate Gilmore, Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights

34th session of the Human Rights Council

6 March 2017

Room XX Palais des Nations
9:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m. / 3:00 p.m. – 6:00 p.m.

 

Excellencies,
Distinguished delegates,
Colleagues and friends,

I am honoured to present this report to you.  And in doing so, wish to place it first in the larger context – the future that the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development seeks to enable.

Most pertinent here – for it gives strategic urgency to the matters of principle that this report addresses – is the exceptional demographic change underway today and for the duration of the 2030 Agenda - the most substantial that the world has ever seen. 

Because of efforts made by States, under benefit of  medical science and with the contribution of civil society, in the areas of health and human rights, sanitation and nutrition, there are alive today more people than ever before and notably being concentrated in roughly two age groups: the very young and the aging.  That preventable mortality among pregnant women and in children has been reduced by close to 50% and life expectancy extended globally to such a degree that the aged population is at its highest level in human history – these are the noble fruits of development efforts, such as those inspired most recently by the Millennium Development agenda.

Because of this labour, is in the offering a most remarkable harvest.  Unprecedented opportunity unfolding over the course of the SDG interval – from now to 2030 – to make of this unique demographic clustering – many more children and many more older people – a resource of great strength and a source of sustained security for individuals, families, communities, whole societies.  There is, on the one hand, a demographic dividend to be reaped for countries whose populations are intensely young while, on the other, the benefits for countries with rapidly aging populations are to be wrought from access to a generation of healthier older people whose accumulated wisdom and experience has never before been available at this scale.

These are magnificent fruits of human achievement.  And, over the next fifteen years or so they bring unprecedented opportunities by which to advance peace, security and inclusive development but deep challenges too should public policy fail either of these distinct populations or fail to build bridges between the two; for, in reality, they are today generations that geographically and socioeconomically live frankly worlds apart.  Yet their fates are intertwined. 

2 billion of the world’s 2.2 billion children live in the developing world where 85 per cent of the world's youth population also reside, whilst it is the world’s wealthiest countries that are home to older and aging populations. These are radically different demographic situations between the so-called developed and developing countries illustrating the "demographic divide" hidden it seems in plain sight.  If we do not unveil and bridge that divide, the SDG agenda will never be realized.

The time to act is now. For unless we accelerate our understanding of and commitment to the rights of children and the time sensitive urgency with which these issues must be tackled in this era, by 2030:

• Almost 70 million children could well have died before reaching their fifth birthdays with children in sub-Saharan Africa 10 times more likely to die before their fifth birthdays than children in high-income countries.
• More than 60 million primary school-aged children will be out of school – roughly the same number as are out of school today.
• Some 750 million women will have been married as children – three quarters of a billion child brides.

To safeguard the future of our planet, to better secure the rights of people of all ages, the futures of all children must be put front and centre of our development and peace efforts – with girls, because of the price they pay for gender based discrimination - brought to the top of the queue.  We can and will achieve this recalibration of our development, peace and security efforts only if we promote first and foremost the realization of their rights.

All children have a right to survive and to thrive.  They have the right to live their lives free from the fear of deprivation, violence and abuse.

Were we students in the class room of public policy for children’s rights, our report card would give us no cause for pride. Development’s fruits to date for children have been uneven and unequal, with life-saving services and assets for realization of rights being denied to children living amid the worst forms of poverty and discrimination:

-     Today, still, close to 570 million children are still living in extreme poverty, 119,000 children under the age of 5 die every week including from preventable causes like a lack of safe drinking water;

-     In the past year alone, up to 1 billion children have experienced physical, sexual or psychological violence, while nearly one in five girls is subjected to sexual abuse;

-     Today, still, close to 58 million children of primary school age still not in school and because of poor education quality 250 million fail to learn the basics of literacy and numeracy.

That much we know.  But weaknesses in monitoring systems mean the inequalities and discrimination that children face are often masked due to an over-reliance on average measures of progress – measures that fail entirely to reflect the realities of the children being uncounted, of children left behind.

Colleagues and friends,

Agenda 2030 is an intergenerational promise.  The demographic profile of today’s decision makers   - median age of parliamentarians for example being about 53 -  is evidence of just how exposed children, adolescents and young people are to the consequences of these decisions in which they are given next to no part. Agenda 2030 promises to leave no one behind.  But fulfilment means too leaving no one out, leaving no one apart and leaving no one without voice.

At this point in human history – given who in the world we are – there is no moral option – no rights filled option – to excuse us should we choose to fail to uphold the rights of children.  Fail them we must not.

Our report (A/HRC/34/27) along with a visual brief conveying the key recommendations are intended to inform your discussions and underscores the principal message that each of the SDGs can support the realization of children’s rights.

I would like to share just three priorities puts forward in our report:

Firstly, we must reach first those children left furthest behind.  Leaving the hardest to reach until last has meant they are more often simply not reached at all.  We must with urgency direct efforts to reaching children and adolescents in the toughest of places at the hardest of times – those in situations of migration and displacement, those on the streets, caught up in the chaos of unplanned urban settlements, the sprawl of the refugee camp, those subjected to discrimination because of race, ethnicity, disability etc and those abandoned in institutions.  In this context, we particularly urge member States to support the new global study on the situation of children deprived of their liberty, which will assess the magnitude of this phenomenon, challenge attitudes that stigmatize these children, and provide recommendations to safeguard their rights.

Secondly, real commitment and top priority means investment. Priority for children is not merely an attitude or a focus.  And in case, we need further incentive, investment in children right now means sound returns for us all tomorrow.

Thirdly, political, practical and participatory accountability is essential if the SDG inter-generational promise is to become a reality in children’s lives.  Participatory accountability is a transformative agenda and it demands of those us who are older a new humility and a deeper personalised commitment to engaging now with those who will come after us.   This calls on us to extend the hand of opportunity, inclusion and dialogue through a participatory approach that involves children and adolescents in defining their needs, preferences and pathways of change.  Providing the space for children to participate in public discussion and decision making - in line with their evolving capacities – refines for the better our understanding of how best to respond to children’s core needs and concerns. Participation is the backbone of accountability.  

The other side of the accountability equation is effective monitoring in which every child is counted through reliable, disaggregated data, to shed light on the situation of children at specific ages, from specific communities and specific groups at heightened risk of discrimination and exclusion.

In significant ways, the future is already with us.  Its fires light on our way, long before we feel the full intensity of their heat.  The future is not fully written but for sure the characters are already on the stage – the backdrop of the world’s present sturggles hangs behind us, the props of sustainable development are to hand, we only have the story line left to write.

Some time ago, a 14-year old girl sat down to tell me her story – a tiny baby on her lap, a child of three at her knee.  The baby’s father was no longer living with her.  He had become violent and with her two children, she took flight.  Staying temporarily in a youth shelter in a neighbouring village, she explained that her older son was a child of rape at the hands of her uncle.  Then aged 10, she had pleaded for early termination of the pregnancy, but was denied it, under force of her country’s law and policy.  Throughout the interview she cried – cried about her unfulfilled hopes to stay in school and the end of her dream of becoming a nurse.   It was so clearly painful for her to tell her story, I asked her why she did so.  She explained that she was speaking to me because she through I could make a difference…, so that other girls would not be put through what she went through.

She said, I believe in you. Well, excellencies, you may not believe in me.  You may not believe in you. We many not believe in us.  But she did – she believed in us.  Most children do.

Children’s rights should be respected, protected and fulfilled.  It is our duty to do just that.  And it is but the icing on the cake of rights upheld, that when we do so, society as a whole reaps the fruit of those demographic dividends.  It is time to stand up for children’s rights today. 

Our distinguished panel of speakers will take us forward in fruitful dialogue on why and how children’s rights are the very heart of the Sustainable Development Goals being after all our sustainable development generation.

Thank you for your attention.