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Brent Parfitt, 63, a lawyer by training, lives in British Columbia, Canada. His interest in children's rights blossomed during a stint as was Director of the Family and Social Services Law Unit at the Ministry of Attorney General. In 1979, he went to the Ombudsman's Office where he created the Child and Youth Team and became the Deputy Ombudsman for Children and Youth. The main focus of the Ombudsman's Office is to promote concepts of administrative fairness and natural justice, as well as human rights and the rights of the child. Mr Parfitt was elected to the Committee on the Rights of the Child in 2005. His term expired earlier this year. It's sad to have left the Committee, as you form relationships with people and the work is extremely interesting. Towards the end, I felt more confident about the process made by States. Since States report every five years, and the term of a Committee member is only for four, you don't always see the implementation. But you can look at past reports, and in some cases there is dramatic progress made, say with universal education. On the other hand, you do have countries where the situation for children has deteriorated, and that's very sad. Societies should be progressing, not going backwards. The Committee is a lot of hard work – that's one of the things that most surprised me about working there. We have to review not only all the reports send by the country, but also the NGO reports and information given to us by the secretariat at OHCHR, which gives us very good support, and then there's also the hearing. You end up coming away emotionally exhausted from the intensity of it all. Its been one of the hardest jobs of my life. There isn't much disagreement at the Committee. What's great is that you have all these people from different professions providing different expertise, so the learning process is fascinating and I'm extremely grateful for the experience. Working in Geneva can sometimes feel very remote from children's lives, and advice takes a long time to be acted upon. Since I left the Committee I have being doing contract work with governments mostly, but also more hands-on work with children. Its nice to be able to work directly with children, and I do some volunteer work at a school for children with disabilities in Mexico. Its great because you often see the immediate results of your work. I started as a lawyer with the Attorney General's office in Canada, and was part of the movement around the deinstitutionalisation of children with developmental disabilities. I was fascinated by the idea of child rights, and codifying them. At our office, we were using the Convention on the Rights of the Child while it was still in its draft form. Having an ethical or moral foundation for your work makes it easier. It is a universal document and that is very effective, since politicians often look to other countries for what to do when they are not sure. I have many other passions besides children's rights. A lot of my work is cerebral in nature, so I love building things. I've built houses and hot rods [cars for racing]. I think it keeps me centred with my feet on the ground. I'm really excited about spending more time with my family. I have four children, and they will hopefully soon start having children of their own. When they were younger, they used to ask why I was spending all this time on disadvantaged children and not with my own. What about us? Another main passion I have is making governments accountable, which is of course linked to children's rights. To make the CRC happen, you need to have monitoring and transparency mechanisms. If I could sum up children's rights on one word? Achievable. Further information
I love the country so much - we have a house there - and have got so much out of it, that it feels right to do something also for some of the children there. I've also been involved in creating a school for indigenous migratory children in Mexico, who often don't get much of an education, or health care for example, because their families keep moving for work.
What has been the best achievement in my career? An issue that has always bothered me and been close to my heart has been children taken into care, as I feel strongly that the government must do a better job than their families did. But the main thing is that when they leave care, they go into absolutely nothing. There is no after care, and they are just forgotten about. It's a tragedy that nobody seems to be able to get to grips with. So we have recently set up a mentoring project where children are set up with an adult or peer who is prepared to make a long term commitment to that child. We started a pilot programme in British Columbia and I'm really happy with it.
One of the difficulties we have is with misinformation. For example, in the US, people are not anti-children any more than anywhere else in the world, but people are worried that the CRC is a threat to parents' rights. Once we get accurate information out there, about these rights being achievable, people will understand why it's important – not just for children but for everyone.