071022_thirdcommittee_rightsofthechild - Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations

Australian Permanent Mission to the United Nations

New York

Permanent Mission address: 150 East 42 Street, Level 33, New York, New York 10017 - Telephone: 1 212 351 6600 - Fax: 1 212 351 6610

Statement delivered to the United Nations Third Committee on behalf of Canada, Australia and New Zealand on the Rights of the Child

18 October 2007

(As delivered)

Mr Chair

I have the honour to speak on behalf of Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

As children are the hope for the future, our countries place high priority on promoting and protecting their rights. In order to ensure a better future for the children in the world, we reiterate our commitment to working with other Member States and international organizations. We also wish to stress the importance of close cooperation between the United Nations, non-governmental organizations, civil society and governments in an effective and comprehensive manner.

Mr Chair,

Canada, Australia and New Zealand wish to emphasize that the Convention on the Rights of the Child must constitute the primary standard in the promotion and protection of the rights of the child, as well as to stress the importance of full implementation of this instrument. We 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 welcome the work of the Committee on the Rights of the Child and UNICEF on these issues and wish to highlight the real difference they are making to children’s lives.

We also welcome the adoption by the UN General Assembly of the new Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as well as the encouragingly high number of states that have already signed it. We call upon all member states to work towards signing and ratifying this new treaty as soon as possible. This Convention promises to provide an important tool for preventing discrimination so that the human rights of some of the most vulnerable children are understood and ensured by States.

Mr Chair,

Every day all over the world children are regrettably the victims of physical and psychological violence. This is a gross violation of their human rights. The work of Secretary General’s Independent Expert Mr. Sergio Pinheiro on this issue, which included the participation of children, is crucial. We welcome his report on the progress made in the initial phase of the follow-up to his detailed recommendations on how to combat violence against children in various settings. We wish to highlight that all violence against children is preventable, and there are already numerous good practices for preventing and addressing this abuse. We must find the most effective ways of following up its recommendations at the national, regional and global levels.

Mr Chair,

CANZ welcomes the ten year strategic review by the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict and UNICEF of the Graça Machel report on the impact of armed conflict on children. While important strides have been made to establish a normative framework, we fully support the recommendations for greater action by member states to ensure accountability and prevent all violations against children. We further welcome the significant progress that has been made to operationalize the monitoring and reporting mechanism called for in Security Council Resolution 1612 on children affected by armed conflict. The Security Council Working Group has considered an impressive number of country reports from the Secretary General and recommended specific actions for each situation. That being said, we need to maintain our attention on real progress in the field in all situations. Our countries wish to encourage the Council to continue its strong recommendations in order to end violations. We stress the need to enforce targeted measures against parties to conflict who persistently commit any grave violations against children, as well as to use all tools at its disposal, such as adapting peacekeeping missions mandates to this end and naming of all violators.

Mr Chair

Five years have passed since the Special Session of the General Assembly at which we committed to creating “A World Fit for Children”. We look forward to participating in the five-year review of this significant occasion at the Commemorative High-Level Plenary meeting in December, as well as hearing the views of children and youth during this event and the preceding Children’s Forum. We see this event as an important opportunity to share key lessons learned in creating "A World Fit for Children".

Mr Chair,
I thank you.