New optional protocol enables children to complain about rights violations
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The Convention on the Rights of the Child is a document
which was made to make sure children have rights.
The United Nations now did a new document to add to this Convention.
It is called the Optional Protocol.
The Optional Protocol will allow children to complain to the UN,
if their home country does not protect their rights.
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On 19 December, the General Assembly adopted an optional protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The protocol should “encourage State parties to develop national mechanisms enabling children whose rights have been violated to access a system through which their voices and complaints can be heard”.
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The Protocol aims to enhance the protection of children against abuse and human rights violations by introducing inter-state communications and an inquiry procedure as well as an international mechanism of individual complaints to address the violation of children’s rights.
The Protocol enables children to bring their complaints about human rights violations before the Committee on the Rights of the Child, once the domestic legal procedures have been exhausted. The Committee will examine all the complaints and determine whether the Convention has been violated or not. It recognises the access of children to justice on an equal basis with adults and strengthens the participatory approach towards the UN Convention.
“I am confident the adoption of the protocol will be followed by a swift process of ratification and its provisions will help bring to an end the invisibility and conspiracy of silence surrounding incidents of violence against children,” said Marta Santos Pais, UN Special Representative on Violence against Children. The new protocol will enter into force three months after it acquires ratifications or accessions from 10 countries.
The European Report on the Implementation of the UN CRC for children with intellectual disabilities, launched by Inclusion Europe, Eurochild and the Charles University in Prague in October 2011, revealed that children with intellectual disabilities are more vulnerable to abuse and human rights violations than non-disabled children. (More information can be found at www.childrights4all.eu).
Due to intellectual or communication impairements and social or attitudinal barriers, the voices of children with intellectual disabilities are widely ignored or misunderstood throughout Europe. "Provisions facilitating the participation of children with intellectual disabilities are poor or simply non-existent. Children with intellectual disabilities are seen as less credible and their words are not taken seriously" the report states.
Inclusion Europe welcomes the new Protocol and insists that the voices of children with intellectual disabilities must be heard equally as others', once the mechanism brought by the Protocol is put in place.
Established in 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument incorporating the full range of human rights for children. The new protocol is the third Optional Protocol attached to the Convention. Optional Protocals on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography and on the involvement of Children in Armed Conflict entered into force in 2002.
The Protocol is available in English, French, Spanish, Russian, Chinese and Arabic at the following link:
http://srsg.violenceagainstchildren.org/document/a-hrc-17-l8_417
Source: UN
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