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Members of the Committee on the Rights of the Child arrived for its 53rd session facing a heavy workload. Over the coming weeks, the Committee will split into two chambers in order to deal with a large backlog of reports. It will examine State party reports from Mongolia, Paraguay, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Estonia, Sierra Leone, Tajikistan, Ecuador, El Salvador and Norway. Under the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography (OPSC) the Committee will examine the reports of Mongolia, Estonia, Sierra Leone, Ecuador and El Salvador. Under the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict (OPAC) it will consider the State party reports of Mongolia, Sierra Leone, Israel, Ecuador and Liechtenstein.
The session began with the adoption of the agenda and the programme of work.
Ms. Mercedes Morales, officer-in-charge of the Human Rights Treaties Division at the OHCHR, talked about notable developments that have taken place since the last session. She talked of the bid to establish a communications procedure under the CRC - an Open-ended Working Group (WG) met from 14 to 18 December 2009. Ms. Morales noted that the Guidelines for Alternative Care of Children had been welcomed by the UN General Assembly on 20 November 2009. She talked about the upcoming events related to the Committee’s work, including the annual day on children, which will be held during the 13th session of the HRC and will focus on sexual violence.
In relation to the harmonisation of treaty body working methods, Ms. Morales mentioned that the 10th Inter-Committee Meeting (ICM) took place in November 2009 to discuss the follow-up to concluding observations and communications procedures. The 10th ICM was attended by Mr. Fillali and Mr. Puras who represented the Committee. The 11th ICM will take place at the end of June 2010 and will focus on the treaty-specific reporting guidelines and list of issues. Ms. Morales remarked that during the 12th session of the HRC, the High Commissioner for Human Rights had launched a plea to States to reflect on how best to streamline and strengthen the treaty body system. An informal meeting had taken place in Dublin (November 2009) and was attended by past and present members of the treaty body system. The meeting resulted in the adoption of the Dublin Declaration which, was was a first step in the process of reflection.
Ms. Morales remarked that the Committee had a heavy agenda in two parallel chambers, as it would be considering 18 reports from 12 States parties. In addition, the Committee will be discussing its working methods and will have meetings with UN agencies as well as NGOs. In conclusion, Ms. Morales noted that while holding sessions in two chambers provided a temporary measure to address the backlog, the Committee was encouraged to reflect on measures and working methods to reduce the workload in future. In relation to the Open-ended WG, Ms. Lee highlighted the lack of translation provided for this inter-governmental meeting and the delay it caused.
Ms. Maja Andrijasevic-Boko, the Secretary of the Committee, announced that since its last session the Committee had received 13 reports, including eight under the Convention and fiveunder the Optional Protocols. Second periodic reports were received from Guinea Bissau and Namibia, and combined second, third and fourth periodic reports were received from Albania, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada and Myanmar. The Committee had received a total of 576 reports, and had considered 419. There were five outstanding initial reports: from the Cook Islands, Nauru, Niue, Tonga and Tuvalu. Reports on the OPAC had been received from Slovakia and Thailand, and Belarus, Slovakia and Thailand had submitted their reports under the OPSC.
Ms. Lee noted that the report from the 20th anniversary event will be adopted during the session. There would be no day of general discussion in 2010 to allow for the examination of pending reports. In addition the Committee would discuss the development of general comments on articles 2 and 19. Ms. Lee added that the first joint Working Group of the Committee on the CRC and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women will take place on 23 January.
Finally, Ms. Lee remarked that the Committee hoped that the 10th anniversary of the two Optional Protocols would further strengthen their implementation.
Further information
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