Complaint Mechanism: NGO Statement on gaps in existing mechanisms

This is a joint statement on behalf of the following NGOs:
International Save the Children Alliance*, Kindernothilfe*, World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT)*, Plan International*, SOS Children's Villages International*, Terres des homes International, World Vision International *, the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN), the Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment, ENOC and the NGO Group for the CRC

Thank you Mr Chairperson. This is a joint statement on behalf of 11 child rights NGOs.

Mr Chairperson,

It has been interesting to hear about some of the best practices at national and regional level (especially the European and Inter-American experiences) and we would like to invite other States to share their positive examples during coming days.

For the purpose of this discussion on exploring the possibility of elaborating an optional protocol, we would like to provide some elements of response to questions on potential overlap with existing national and regional mechanisms and illustrate how a communications procedure would complement and strengthen these mechanisms.

While children should ideally have access to effective national mechanisms, there is strong evidence and recognition that national remedies are often inadequate or non-existent.

As the Committee has observed while examining States parties reports, domestic legislation is often not in full conformity with the provisions of the CRC nor fully implemented in practice. If the CRC is not fully incorporated in domestic legislation, victims will not be able to ground their claims on specific national rights and judges will often face difficulties if they want to apply the CRC directly. In some countries, although international law is considered superior to domestic law, judges have no incentive to refer to these cases. A communications procedure could motivate them to consider the CRC more seriously.

As mentioned in several interventions, there are serious issues of children’s access to national complaints mechanisms. Indeed, many states do not have a complaints mechanism or if they do, they are limited in scope.

For instance many NHRI and Ombudspersons do not have a comprehensive mandate to consider complaints or support legal action on behalf of children.

With the exception of the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, none of the other regional human rights treaties were specifically designed with children in mind and none of them cover the full range of rights in the Convention. Another gap is that no regional human rights mechanism exists for Asia, thus a large proportion of the world's children have no access to such a mechanism.
 
With its near universal ratification, the CRC covers more countries than all the existing regional mechanisms put together, including States that are Parties to the CRC and not their regional instruments.
 
More importantly, through an international communications procedure, all children will be guaranteed decisions based on the same rights and standards regardless of where they come from.

Ideally, if existing mechanisms are genuinely accessible and effective, children will be able to get redress at national or regional level. However, this is not a question of having either national/regional mechanisms or an international one.

Subjects of rights should be able to appeal to an international specialist committee when national and regional mechanisms have failed them.
 
Thank you Mr Chairperson