Universal Children’s Day 2012: UN experts urged States to do more to protect children

Date: 20th November 2012
Category: UK 1st periodic review, Equal protection from violence

On Universal Children's Day, UN experts highlighted the urgency of achieving universal ratification and effective implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child and its three optional protocols.

Five top United Nations child rights experts urged world Governments to adopt more active measures to protect children from all forms of violence, prevent the perpetration of crimes against children and to bring to justice those responsible for child sexual exploitation and for the recruitment and use of children in armed conflict.

In May 2010 the UN Secretary-General launched a two-year global campaign for the universal ratification of the first two Optional Protocols by 2012 with the joint support of his Special Representatives on Violence against Children, and for Children and Armed Conflict; the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Special Rapporteur on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, in cooperation with UNICEF and the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Since the launch of the campaign, 24 Member States have ratified the Optional Protocol on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography which is now in force in 161 countries; and 18 States have become party to the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict amounting to a total of 150 ratifications.

In December 2011, the General Assembly adopted the third Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, introducing a communications procedure to enable children to obtain redress for the violations of their rights.

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