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INTRODUCTION
The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and its corresponding
Committee are the principal instruments and mechansims dealing with
children's rights issues. However, there are a number of other
international instruments and mechanisms which also consider
children's rights. Firstly, there are those in the United Nations
(UN) system for human rights. Secondly, there are those in the
regional human rights systems: the European, the Inter-American and
the African. Finally, children's rights are also covered by
international humanitarian law.
The main aim of this report is to facilitate Radda Barnen's ude of
the international human rights mechanisms of the UN and how they
relate to the promotion of children's rights. It also aims at
providing useful information for other Save the Children Alliance
members and international children's rights organisations. The report
is part of Radda Barnen's International Programme Department's
efforts to increase knowledge and understanding among its staff of
the human rights mechanisms, and thereby to facilitate the
development of more coherent and systematic advocacy work directed
towards the mechanisms.
There is little information and documentation on the subject and it
has been difficult to find examples of how NGOs have promoted
children's rights issues within the UN system. The main source of
information has therefore come from interviews carried out with key
persons active in the field of human rights, especially in the field
of children's rights. The list of interviewees covers a broad range
of people from the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Permanent
Mission of Sweden in Geneva, officials at the Office of the UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva, members and former members
of various UN mechanisms, NGO human rights activists, and
researchers. In addition to the interviews, the study is based on
documentation on the various human rights mechanisms in the UN system.
The report describes the structure and mandates of the human rights
system of the UN and how the mechanisms relate to each other. A chart
is annexed to clarify the structure - see Appendix II. For each of
the mechanisms, the report examines to what extent children's rights
issues are considered, and how NGOs like Radda Barnen may influence
the mechanisms. There is a bias of information regarding commentaries
on government responsibilities and representation relating to Sweden
and the Nordic countries. The reason for this is mainly the direct
relevance of the information for Radda Barnen in its future advocacy
work.
The report gives examples, presented in 'fact boxes', on how some
NGOs have advocated children's rights issues in the various
mechanisms. Some of the examples are drawn from Radda Barnen's and
Save the Children Alliance's own experiences while others are the
experiences of other NGOs. The intention is to provide only some
examples of NGO work within the mechanisms, and not to cover the
whole range of issues and possibilities. The examples given are
mainly experiences of NGOs in the 1990s. We are aware, however, that
advocacy work for children's rights has been conducted for a long
time. As early as 1923, for example, Eglantyne Jebb, who founded the
Save the Children Fund in 1919, drafted the Declaration of the Rights
of the Child. One year later, the Declaration was adopted by the
League of Nations as an international document. Another example is
the work of the NGO Group for the Convention on the Rights of the
Child in the 1980s when it contributed to the drafting of the CRC.
Finally, the report suggests possible ways on how and where Radda
Barnen and the Alliance can conduct advocacy on children's rights
issues in the human rights system of the UN.
Owner: Clara Sommarin