Give a Voice to Children and Young People

By an IPS Correspondent Reprint | | Print |

UNITED NATIONS, Feb 28 2013 (IPS) - “The protocol should help give voice to children,” said Octavio Errázuriz , permanent representative of Chile to the United Nations, referring to the Third Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of Child. He was addressing a meeting Thursday sponsored by the International Coalition for the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

George Freyre, of the Latin American and Caribbean Network for Children and Young People’s Rights, said the Third Protocol will give children a voice at the international level if their national system has failed to protect them. “It transcends democracies,” he added.

The protocol will permit children or their representatives to file individual complaints regarding specific violations of their rights. The protocol, which was adopted in December 2011, opened for signature on the February 28th, 2012. Currently it has 35 signatories and four ratifications: Gabon, Thailand, Germany, and Bolivia.

“This morning, I have deposited our instrument of ratification for my government,” said Peter Wittig, Permanent Representative of Germany. The representative of Bolivia said the Bolivian parliament had passed a ratification bill in December and that the instrument of ratification will be deposited in the next few days.

The protocol will enter into force when 10 countries will have ratified it. As of now, Chile, Finland, Spain and the Maldives have entered the ratification process while Spain and Finland expect to have a ratification bill passed by the end of December 2013.

“Fast access to international complaint should be available when domestic processes have been exhausted,” said Jarmo Viinanen, Permanent Representative of Finland to the UN and current President of the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) Executive Board.

“Children are not mini human being with mini human rights,” emphasized Freyre, quoting Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro, author of the United Nations Secretary General’s Study on Violence against Children.

“We can make amazing progress on the protection of the children agenda if governments, parliaments and advocacy groups work together,” Wittig said.

Marta Santos Pais, Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Violence against Children explained that this protocol is a “great opportunity to move the protection of the rights of the child forward.” “In most countries, there is no sensitive mechanism for counselling or taking complaints from children,” she said.
“We need to remind states, civil society and young people of the mechanism this protocol provides,” she added.

“The Committee on the Rights of the Child is interpreting the preamble and the second article as covering lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth issues and rights,” she told IPS.