Submitted by crinadmin on
Ms Yanghee Lee, of the Republic of Korea, is currently chair of the Committee on the Rights of the Child - a position she has held since 2007. She was elected to the Committee in 2003, and her mandate expires in February. Ms. Lee has a PhD in early childhood education for children with disabilities, and is Professor of Child Psychology and Education at Sungkyunkwan University, Seoul. Among other positions, she is Member of the Korean Society for Special Education, Member of the Korean Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and is Founding member of the Korean Society for the Rights of Children with Disabilities. Ms Lee is currently chairing the 49th session of the Committee on the Rights of the Child. She spoke briefly to CRIN on the eve of the Committee's Day of General Discussion last week. It has been a very, very busy week. The preparations for the Day of General Discussion are always frantic. The best thing about my role is that I get to meet a lot of different people who are doing good work – not just adults, but also children from around the world. The worst thing about my job is not having enough time in the day to do all I want to do. And I can’t remember the last time I had a holiday! I make a point of not just making a speedy visit, and I give them a list of places or organisations I would like to visit. I am particularly interested in special education, although all the articles of the CRC are very important. Those articles dealing with abuse and neglect are important to focus on. The biggest challenge for the realisation of children’s rights is still societal attitude, and how people view children. The status of children is simply not as high as other human beings. People are recognising the human rights treaties, but there are still many stumbling blocks. I am also a trained child therapist, so I cannot imagine what else I would be doing if I were not working in child rights. If I was not here talking to you right now, I would be...in bed! The complaints mechanism is a crucial development, and it was my priority when I was elected. I am also very supportive of the petition to halt the execution of child offenders. Something that really alarms me is that some countries are actually trying to bring back the corporal punishment of children – I believe in Kenya and Papua New Guinea. It is sad that we are going backwards in some places. The difficulty of being chair is that sometimes it can be really hard to get the message across. Two barriers remain to child rights: legislative reform, which means not just legal but the whole process, and implementation. In many countries child rights is dismissed as a northern concept. But it is not. It is our job to see the good points of societies, even when we have condemned other aspects of it. We do not use the word ‘weakness’ – instead we use the word ‘needs’. We have to help people address the needs. I have decided to stand for reelection to the Committee. It was a hard decision. There are two major holidays in my country, and since 2003 I have never been home for either of them! Read past interviews here