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The following are preliminary observations made from the Working Groups taking part in the UN event to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the CRC. Official recommendations from the Working Groups will be adopted by the Committee on the Rights of the Child at a later date - probably at its 53rd session in January 2010. Read recommendations from children at the event Recommendations 2. Legislation: Ensure the ratification of all relevant instruments, eg Optional Protocol on child exploitation. Criminalise all exploitation, and ensure implementation of appropriate legislation. 3. Establish mechanisms of investigation, complain and sanction 4. Participation of children in policy-making, budgets etc, including as members of advisory councils 5. Favourable environment: Organise information and sensitisation campaigns. Identify those children at particular risk. 6. Private sector/media: Ensure private sector and media are also responsible for the fight against abuse and exploitation 7. International cooperation Working Group 2: Discrimination against children Full background paper: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/20th/BackDocWG2.doc Recommendations 2. Depiction of children. Strengthen/develop guidelines governing depiction of children in media, advertising etc. 3. Promote research, data collection, monitoring and evaluation, including participation of children 4. Prevent discrimination: Measures should include, for example, changing attitudes by promoting dialogue and human rights education 5. Remedies: Make remedies for violations available at international, national and local level. These should include judicial and non-judicial procedures. 6. Child rights mainstreaming Full background paper: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/20th/BackDocWG3.doc
Recommendations 2. Ensure policy-making is evidence-based. Encourage benchmarking and data collection. 3. Ensure stimulus packages, and other measures, contain child-centred components. 4. Encourage business sector to minimise risk of activities involving violations of children's rights 5. States should take all necessary measure to make economic, social and cultural rights justiciable 6. Urge States to protect, in times of economic hardship, to protect present levels of contribution of international development and cooperation. Full background paper: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/20th/BackDocWG4.doc Recommendations 2. States should recognise the particular role of education in promoting holistic development. Schools should be a place where children and adults together plan how students may be enabled to practice capacities. 3. States should consider setting appropriate ages, allowing for flexible application, that recognise both the capacity of the children and the need for his/her protection. 4. State Parties should avoid regulations that require an assessment of the individual child's evolving capacities any time he or she wants to exercise one of his or her rights, especially regarding expressing his/her views. 5. State Parties should take account of how different children from different backgrounds develop in different ways 6. State Parties should develop indicators for measuring progress, or lack there of. Recommendations: 2. National legislation should incorporate references to article 12 of the CRC, and guideline should be adopted on how children are to participate. Child-led associations should be given legal recognition. 3. States should ensure parents and professionals are trained and that the general public is informed on how to encourage child participation. 4. Schools are key. There should be participatory mechanisms and continuous consultation with children through, for example, student councils and representatives. 5. Media should involve children in developing programmes. 6. Discrimination and excluded groups of children should in particular be encourage to participate. Full background paper: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/20th/BackDocWG6.doc
Recommendations: 2. State Parties should make special consideration for particularly vulnerable groups of children, such as those with disabilities, children of divorced parents, children in alternative care institutions, migrant children etc 3. Develop training materials for parents and children on human rights education. 4. The Committee should continue efforts to strengthen State compliance with article 12> 5. The Committee may suggest research be carried out on dialogue in families, and the importance of investing time in the family, and the associated returns. 6. Request State Parties to promote organisation of work enabling enough time for dialogue in families. Observations from children and young people The following observations were made by children and young people at the close of the event:-
Working Group 1: Children: rights-holder versus commodity
Description: In light of the pervasive prevalence of the sexual exploitation of children, this workshop will focus on the recommendations undertaken at the Third World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents held in Rio de Janeiro in November 2008, and toward implementation of the goals and targets of the Rio de Janeiro Declaration and Call for Action to Prevent and Stop Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents.
Full background paper: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/20th/BackDocWG1.doc
1. An integrated approach for prevention and protection, founded in children's rights
Establish a holistic system that will result on the long term protection of children against sexual and economic exploitation. Keep track of progress
Description: This workshop will tackle this de facto, and frequently de jure, form of discrimination, with a particular focus on widespread discrimination faced by children with disabilities; a pervasive problem requiring urgent action on a global scale. Children experience discrimination every day, often because they are not recognized as subjects of rights. This discrimination is usually compounded exponentially for children with disabilities, and when those children are national, ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities, street children, children in conflict with the law or members of other marginalized and displaced groups, it is common for them to experience multiple forms of discrimination.
1. Strengthen collaboration between treaty bodies eg joint general comment on discrimination
Working Group 3: State parties' obligations: realising economic, social and cultural rights. Are child rights a luxury during an economic crisis?
Description: The central question we will consider in this workshop will be how to strategically identify and prioritise the activities and measures that should be undertaken by States parties to ensure that they are implementing their obligations under the Convention “to the maximum extent of their available resources.”
1.Review or develop national plans of action during economic crises to ensure children's rights protected
Working Group 4: Evolving capacities as an enabling principle in practice
Description: Our primary mission, then, will be determining how to interpret and apply universal human rights standards across diverse stages and realities of childhood, including through exploration of the issue of evolving capacities. A connected issue we need to consider is how to appropriately account for the evolving capacities of the child while encouraging their participation both at home and in the public sphere, particularly in relation to decision-making processes that will affect her or his life.
1. State Parties should support those with responsibility for children to nurture children's evolving capacities
Working Group 5. A new democratic dynamic: child participation in the public sphere
Description: Fulfilling the obligations related to the right of the child to be heard undoubtedly presents challenges for States parties. The issue we now face is how to translate the right to be heard into effective and participative dialogue between Governments, civil society and children themselves, and to encourage child participation, not only during single events or through symbolic gestures, but in all decisions undertaken at the local, national, regional and global levels.
Full background paper: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/crc/docs/20th/BackDocWG5.doc
1. States should institutionalise mechanisms for child participation, and consult children in developing such mechanisms. States should avoid tokenism, and such mechanisms must be accountable to children.
Working Group 6: Children's voices in the family: overcoming resistance
Description:
Our next step is to move from elaboration of the right of the child to be heard in the family context and the private sphere to actual realisation of this right wherein children are encouraged and enabled to participate in every relevant decision affecting their lives.
1. State Parties should develop child-friendly complaints mechanisms.