Delays in UN membership contributions by Member States are putting human rights, including children’s rights, at risk, according to the global network Child Rights Connect. The network has warned that the funding shortfall is undermining the UN system and multilateralism. A direct result of this shortfall will be the cancellation of the third sessions of the Human Rights Treaty Bodies. Cancelling these sessions, which include the Committee on the Rights of the Child in September, would be unprecedented.
The Treaty Bodies are at the core of the Human Rights system and are the means through which States comply with their legal obligations regarding their human rights commitments. Cancelling these sessions undermines the rule of law and weakens the enforcement of human rights. The Committee on the Rights of the Child examines each State party’s compliance with the Convention on the Rights of the Child and makes recommendation to States with the aim of improving the lives of all children. The session is also an opportunity for civil society, individuals and children themselves to report to the Committee on their experiences of everyday life.
The information of these possible cancelations came to the child rights community in the midst of discussions on the best way to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the most widely ratified treaty with only one State failing to ratify. Child Rights Connect and its members are deeply concerned that the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and of the Human Rights system as a whole may be put in jeopardy, and that the accountability mechanisms which are already significantly underfunded, are weakened further. This is a discouraging message to the world and contradicts the vision of the 2030 Agenda which aims to protect the most vulnerable and leave no one behind.
Child Rights Connect and its members call on governments to stand up for the values upon which the United Nations system, in particular the Human Rights mechanisms were built, and act in accordance with the vision put forward by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We owe it to our children.
Child Rights Connect is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation founded in 1983. It is the world’s largest network for children’s rights and links those who stand up for children’s rights to the United Nations (UN) human rights system. Through its 90-member organisations coordinated by a Secretariat in Geneva, Child Rights reach every country across the globe.
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