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Summary: CRIN is contacting all candidates standing for election to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in December 2010. We are asking them about their experience in children's rights, what they think they can contribute to the Committee, what they think about key issues, their vision for the Committee and, importantly, how they see NGOs' role.
Agnes Akosua Aidoo, 71, from Ghana, is a consultant, advisor and researcher on child rights, child development and protection. She has served on the Committee on the Rights of the Child for three years. Ms Aidoo previously worked for UNICEF in New York as policy advisor on gender and child rights and as a Representative in Tanzania, and sits on various boards including the International Board of Trustees of the African Child Policy Forum. Why do you want to serve on the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child? I want to build on the experience that I gained during my first term as a Committee member and Vice-Chair. Being on the Committee has exposed me to a variety of backgrounds and enabled me to learn a great deal from these varying perspectives, as well as presenting me with an opportunity to use these perspectives and to play a leadership role in the Committee's work. I want to build upon this foundation during a second term as a Committee member. What do you think you can contribute to the Committee's Work? I bring to the table a broad perspective of the context in which children's rights can be fulfilled. I have a background in social policy, social development, gender and women's issues and from this foundation have come to focus on children's rights. This background, together with my strong grasp of the developmental context of countries and the relevant cultural context, I feel is very important to understand, interpret and implement the rights of children. Which issue in child rights do you feel needs more attention? Child poverty, as it undermines the ability of children to enjoy all of their rights. The fact is, child poverty exists even in the most developed countries. Governments must focus their attention on the actual reality of life of children on the ground and then adopt legislation, policies and programmes to ensure the necessary changes. The other two areas that we must address as a priority are violence against children, which other Committees are also addressing too, and early childhood development. What has been the best achievement in your career? My time as the Area Representative for UNICEF in Tanzania and Seychelles enabled me to work at the highest level and ensure that national authorities and institutions, and their development partners, adopt a child rights perspective in all areas of their work. The role enabled me to work not only from the top downwards, but also importantly from the bottom upwards as I also worked closely at the community and village level. The role really enabled me to help empower the community by receiving their perspective and transmitting it to the government level. What is your vision for the UN Committee? How do you think it could be made more effective? The Committee must work more with NGOs and children's groups, wherever time and capacity permit. We must also work more closely with other Committees, which we are starting to do, such as our work with CEDAW where we are working on a General Comment together on the issue of harmful traditional practices. What do you think the biggest challenge the Committee faces is? The overload of work. We have yet to find a solution for this problem. Unfortunately, the time and space to do other work is limited, such as working on General Comments or co-operating with children for example. Once all the initial Optional Protocol reviews have been completed, they will then be incorporated in the CRC reviews which should free up some time at least. How do you think the Committee could work more effectively with NGOs? We could consider linking Committee members with groups of NGOs, region by region. We should really be getting to visit the regions prior to or after the reviews to meet with the NGOs, to observe for ourselves what is actually going on on the ground. Field level exposure for Committee members would be very important. The importance of breaking this down by regions and assigning some Committee members to specific regions is that regions differ in their priority areas. For example, countries in Northern Europe are faced with different priority child rights issues to those in Africa. We as Committee members need to get our feet wet, rather than just receive reports. We do, of course, have a pre-session which provides the opportunity to interact with NGOs for half a day per country, but included in these meetings are also representatives from the UN organisations such as UNICEF, WHO, ILO, national human rights institutions and others, reducing the time we have to spend engaging directly with NGOs. If you were not working in children's rights, what would you be doing? I wouldn't work on anything else; children's rights are the beginning of human development and the beginning of our peace and security. This is why I am so convinced of the importance of children's rights. Children's rights are crucial if we are to achieve long term sustainable foundations for human rights. If you wait for a person to reach 18 before you take their human rights seriously, what chance do we have then! What one word sums up children's rights to you? For me, one word sums up children's rights: Dignity
Click here to view Agnes's CV