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Progress has been made in child protection in the UAE, a UN expert on human rights said yesterday, although she encouraged the country to adopt a federal approach to children’s rights. Najat M’jid Maalla,the UN special rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography, ended a five-day mission to assess child protection in the UAE, and said mechanisms to protect children should cover the entire country. “In each place I went I saw things that were good practices,” she said during a press briefing. “The norms and standards are good, but should be strengthened to cover the country so that they are accessible to all children.” During her mission, she visited organisations providing protection to victims of child abuse, including the Dubai Foundation for Women and Children. She saw examples of law enforcement agencies working at the community level, such as the Abu Dhabi Police social support centres. Mrs M’jid Maalla called for an “integrated” Child Protection National Strategy that would give children across the Emirates access to complaint mechanisms and protection systems, including vulnerable children such as orphans and children from bidoon, or stateless, families. Plans to develop a proper system to gather and analyse information relating to child protection was a step forward, said Mrs M’jid Maalla, who was also encouraged that the UAE’s first child-protection law was being finalised. During her visit, Mrs M’jid Maalla met federal and local government officials, including members of the Federal National Council and local law enforcement authorities. She travelled to Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Dubai. She also met the National Committee to Combat Human Trafficking, where members briefed her on efforts to combat modern slavery, and with other groups who described their child-protection efforts. Mrs M’jid Maalla said that during her visit she had come across a “low number” of reports of cases in which children were sold or trafficked for sexual exploitation. She said the Government should make sure that sexually exploited children should be treated as victims. “All children under 18 years of age who are sexually exploited should be considered as victims and not as delinquents,” she said in a prepared statement. “They should not be put in jail. The state should also ensure that such victims have access to adequate care, protection, rehabilitation, re-integration and reparation.” She received no reports that children were still being trafficked for use as camel jockeys, something she attributed to the Government’s efforts to stop the practice. After banning the use of child jockeys, the UAE repatriated more than 1,100 children to Mauritania, Sudan, Bangladesh and Pakistan between 2005 and 2007. The UAE also funded Unicef projects to help rehabilitate and repatriate children who had been trafficked here to work as camel jockeys. Mrs M’jid Maalla remarked on the significance of Federal Law 51, the anti-human trafficking law, which prescribes harsh punishments, including life sentences in prison and fines of up to Dh1 million. Mrs M’jid Maalla also noted that the UAE has ratified international treaties relating to child protection including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially women and children. She was encouraged that the UAE was in the process of ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. “When you are protecting children and they have access to assistance, you will also prevent cases of child exploitation,” she said. “My feeling after five days is that there is a real political commitment to do better and there are many efforts towards child protection and combating trafficking in particular.” Mrs M’jid Maalla, a paediatric doctor from Morocco who was appointed to the three-year special rapporteur posting in 2008, has been involved with child protection issues in Morocco for many years, including efforts to combat trafficking, violence, sexual exploitation and child homelessness. Her trip follows the visit of Githu Muigai, the UN special rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, who travelled to the UAE earlier this month. Both experts will produce reports stemming from the visits, which will be submitted to the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) and be discussed by member states and the UAE. The two trips were the first official visits to the country by the UN’s 30 independent human-rights experts or working groups that constitute the special rapporteurs. The Government extended invitations for the two experts to visit during the UAE’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) before the HRC in Geneva in March. Further information