Statement by Ms Lara Nassau ,First Secretary, Permanent Mission of Australia, to the United Nations Third Committee on The rights of the child
17 October 2008
(As delivered)
I have the honour to speak on behalf of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
Canada, Australia and New Zealand remain firmly dedicated to ensuring the protection of all children from harm and exploitation. If we, as an international community, are to create a better future for all children, a future where children’s rights are respected and children are encouraged to reach their full potential, then we must reaffirm our commitment to working with other member states and international organisations, as well as non-governmental organisations and civil society, in a global partnership to this end.
Canada, Australia and New Zealand continue to encourage all states to protect and promote children’s rights. The Convention on the Rights of the Child sets the standard against which all states can be measured and scrutinised. We again urge those states that have not yet done so to ratify the Convention, and to give early consideration to signing and ratifying the Convention’s Optional Protocols. We recognise the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and UNICEF on these issues and acknowledge the improvements they are making to children’s lives. However, we continue to raise our concerns regarding the omnibus resolution on the rights of the child. New approaches are needed to ensure an open and inclusive framework exists to promote and debate children’s rights.
The Commemorative High Level Plenary meeting devoted to the follow-up to the outcome of the 2002 United Nations Special Session on Children, held in December 2007, was an important process in evaluating progress in the global implementation of ‘A World Fit for Children’. While we are encouraged at the considerable progress that has been made over the past five years, we recognise that the challenge to create a world fit for children still remains. Over half the children in the developing world continue to live without access to basic services, commodities and the protection necessary to survive and develop.
Much remains to be done. Every day, children around the world still suffer gross physical and psychological violence. This is particularly true in conflict situations, which continue to be characterised by grave violations of the most basic rights of children, including sexual violence. Canada, Australia and New Zealand remain extremely concerned about the plight of those affected by armed conflict.
We commend the Special Representative of the Secretary-General on Children and Armed Conflict for her leadership and dedication on this issue. We welcome her latest report which details the important progress that is being made in this area, but note that more needs to be done to ensure more effective protection of children in situations of armed conflict. The grave violations being perpetrated against children include, not only recruitment of children as child soldiers, but also killing and maiming of children, attacks against schools or hospitals, rape or grave sexual violence, abduction, and denial of humanitarian access.
As noted in the Special Representative’s report, recruitment and use of children has become the means of choice for many armed groups for waging war. Children are vulnerable to recruitment for a range of reasons, including poverty and lack of livelihood opportunities, domestic violence, or lack of parental role models altogether.
We are pleased that significant progress has been made to operationalise the monitoring and reporting mechanism mandated in Security Council resolution 1612 on children and armed conflict, and that the Security Council Working Group has continued its consideration of country reports in this regard. This mechanism has proved to have both preventive and deterrent effects, and we must continue to strengthen it.
We welcome the adoption by the UN Security Council of resolution 1820 earlier this year, which recognises that children in armed conflict are at risk of sexual violence. We will continue to advocate for the implementation of key provisions in this resolution in order to protect children from these grave abuses of their rights.
The release of the comprehensive report on violence against children by the Secretary-General’s Independent Expert, Mr Sergio Pinheiro, drew the attention of the international community to this issue. It is imperative that we maintain this attention and follow up on the recommendations of the report. In light of this, Canada, Australia and New Zealand continue to call for the appointment of a Special Representative to the Secretary-General on Violence against Children, as called for in UN General Assembly resolution 62/141. We further note that the mandate of a new Special Representative on Violence against Children should be clearly delineated from the work of the SRSG on Children and Armed Conflict, so that the work of each will strengthen rather than undermine the other.
An investment in children today will reap benefits for future peace and stability.