Some examples of broad child rights strategies

63. The following paragraphs focus on 3 broad child rights strategy areas. This short list is not in any way exhaustive, but provides an indication of the manner in which a child rights strategy and its component activities can be developed.

1. Strengthening the child rights impact of the operation’s current activities

64. It should be possible to find a potential positive impact on respect for children’s rights from almost any activity undertaken by a human rights operation — e.g.

detention work, investigations, training for soldiers, promotion of the human rights of women, capacity building for local human rights NGOs, etc. However, the impact of these activities on children’s rights may remain merely potential or incidental, unless there is a concerted effort to ensure that child rights are taken into consideration at the planning stage of activities in the operation’s strategies.

65. For example, human rights training for police officers, judicial and prison officials my focus on:

v rights to freedom of movement and speech, v the rights of defendants in criminal trials,

v minimum standards of conditions of detention, and

v the rights of detainees not to suffer ill-treatment or torture.

66. From a child rights perspective, the same training programme could be strengthened to include a focus on:

v juvenile justice principles,

v the principle of the best interests of the child,

v the obligation for the detention of minors to be used only as a measure of last resort, v alternatives to imprisonment sentences,

v the obligation for minors to be detained or imprisoned separately from minors, etc.

67. One aspect of the human rights operation’s strategy could be to ensure that all the operation’s main activities include a child rights perspective and that the operation’s overall analysis of the human rights situation includes child rights concerns.

2. Supporting the work of partners

68. Supporting and strengthening the efforts of others to protect and promote children’s rights should be a major aspect of any strategy to promote and protect children’s rights. “Partners” is a term that can be used very broadly to include parts of the State (e.g. the ministries of education or justice), other UN bodies, and national or international NGOs. Two examples are given below.

1. Partners with a general mandate to assist children: The work of many organizations in favour of children focuses on the more material aspects of rights protection. The expertise and mandates of these organizations are best suited to this task; human rights operations can, however, often contribute to helping these missions achieve their objectives by complementing and strengthening their work using the operations’ particular mandate and expertise.

For example:

v While access to education in a certain region my be a fundamental child rights problem, its cause may be a combination of a lack of school buildings, equipment and teachers on the one hand, and the practice of discrimination through which local officials prevent children from a particular religious or ethnic group from attending school on the other.

v Many humanitarian organizations are uncomfortable with directly addressing human rights violations in a manner which goes beyond the provision of assistance as described in their mandates. Human rights operations can usefully fill this sort of gap by ensuring, as in the above example, that the provision of material aid genuinely addresses existing rights violations.

2. “General measures of CRC implementation” — supporting national structures: The CRC devotes several articles to “general measures of implementation” (also known as the 1st cluster in the CRC reporting guidelines). Respect for children’s rights cannot be truly effective unless a State successfully implements various “general measures of implementation”. These include:

v the strengthening of domestic legislation;

v establishment of national structures to develop and coordinate child rights policy;

v development of a human rights (including child rights) national plan of action;

v development of mechanisms for the accurate collection of data relevant to the child rights situation;

v involvement of civil society in implementation of the CRC;

v implementation of child rights training programmes for relevant persons, including Ministry officials, the police, teachers, social workers, parents, etc.

These factors, among others, are considered to form a major base upon which children’s rights can be securely established. Many of these factors are as relevant to the implementation of broader human rights standards as they are to child rights standards, and there are relatively few organizations with the relevant mandate and expertise to provide assistance in these areas. By way of example, human rights operations in an appropriate situation could very valuably contribute to the strengthening of some aspects of a State’s general measures of implementation.

3. Building upon the CRC reporting process

69. A further example of a broad strategic area through which a human rights operation can contribute to the protection and promotion of children’s rights is through support to treaty body reporting processes (and to that of the CRC in particular) and the follow-up to treaty body concluding observations. The regular presentation to the Committee on the Rights of the Child of a State’s report (in principle every 5 years) is only one stage in a process which creates multiple

opportunities for the improved protection of children’s rights. UNICEF provides valuable support to States throughout the CRC reporting process and follow-up to concluding observations. There are also some areas in which UN human rights operations have a specific expertise to contribute. For example:

v The preparation of a State’s report requires the gathering of specific information on the Convention’s implementation. Some of this information should be drawn from areas that fall within the competence of the human rights operation — HROs can support the State in ensuring accurate data collection and help to establish permanent data collection mechanisms for particular human rights criteria.

v The reporting guidelines implicitly require States to consult with NGOs in the preparing their report; human rights operations can support the contribution of national human rights NGOs to this process and in so doing help to strengthen independent national human rights organizations.

70. Human rights operations can usefully contribute to the CRC, other treaty body and special procedures reporting processes as part of strategy to improve respect and promotion for children’s rights.

E. Monitoring and reporting on