5 March 2012 – “The right to nutrition: key to children’s health and survival” Human Rights Council side-event discussion
Jointly organised with World Vision, the event featured the Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Olivier de Schutter, an Indian parliamentarian Dr Charles Dias as part of the close Local to Global link with India, and Ben Phillips, our Everyone Campaign Mobilisation Director.
UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Mr. Olivier De Schutter
The side event served to further explore how human rights can reinforce efforts to promote access to adequate diets, one of the most urgent challenges facing the world today. The figures speak for themselves. Hunger and malnutrition contribute to one third of all deaths among children under the age of five. One in three children in the developing world suffer from chronic malnutrition, with malnourished girls later delivering low birth weight babies, reinforcing a vicious intergenerational cycle of high maternal and child mortality.
The event was very well attended, with a variety of missions, NGOs and UN agencies present. The presence in the audience of high profile figures such as David Nabarro (Special Representative of the Secretary General for Nutrition and Food Security) and Francesco Branca (WHO Director, Nutrition for Health and Development) was indicative of the timeliness and profile of engagement on the issue of the right to nutrition. Contributions from the floor from these and other figures added to the excellent panel speakers. See the event report and watch the speakers’ video interviews about the right to food.
28 February 2012 – Official UN signing ceremony of a third optional protocol to the UNCRC
The signing ceremony took place during the UN Human Rights Council session in Geneva opening the Protocol for signature and ratification .
For the first time and more than twenty years after the official recognition of their rights, children are provided with the possibility to access justice at the international level through a newly adopted complaints procedure to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
The adoption of this new international treaty by the UN General Assembly on 19 December 2011 will allows individuals, groups or their representatives, claiming that their rights have been violated by a State that is a party to a Convention, to bring a communication before the relevant UN treaty body; provided that the State has accepted the procedure and that the complainants have exhausted domestic remedies.
The signing ceremony at the United Nations is the result of active campaigning by an NGO coalition representing child rights and human rights NGOs across the world since 2006. The NGO coalition campaigned for this new instrument to offer children a level of protection equivalent to that provided to adults at the UN level.
Twenty States from across the world, namely Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Finland, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Maldives, Mali, Montenegro, Morocco, Peru, Portugal, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, and Uruguay, demonstrated strong leadership and political commitment to protecting children’s rights by signing the Protocol today.
This is an important first step, but those States will still need to ratify the Protocol in order to be bound by its provisions and at least ten countries must ratify the Protocol before it can be used.
A joint press release is available in English and in French. For further information on the OPCRC please contact Michael French hc.nerdlihcehtevasnull@leahcim.
15 February 2012 – Launch of Save the Children new global report on child malnutrition
New global survey shows that, following year of rocketing food prices, nearly half of surveyed families are forced to cut back on food and children do not have enough food to eat.
From left to right : •Patrick Watt, Campaign Director, Save the Children International • Chaired by Carole Presern, Director, PMNCH • Flavia Bustreo, Assistant Director General, Family, Women's and Children's Health, WHO • Regina Moench-Pfanner, Senior Director, Innovation and Technical Services, GAIN
Through a series of launch events around the world, Save the Children released the new report ‘A Life Free from Hunger: Tackling Child Malnutrition’ that sets out the scale and dimensions of malnutrition globally, its impact on child mortality and development, and the policy solutions that can tackle malnutrition and boost child survival. See the full report.
In Geneva, a global capital for nutrition policy, the occasion was marked by a roundtable which gathered together institutions and individuals who have a lead role on this issue, drawing attention to the need for committed action around the world. See the event report.
A press release is available in English and French. For further information on our global campaign please visit everyone.org
19 December 2011 – Adoption of a third optional protocol to the UNCRC
The UN General Assembly has taken a remarkable historical step forward for the protection of children’s rights by adopting the Optional Protocol (OP) to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) on a complaints mechanism for children’s rights violations.
Girls on in Sanjay Colony, New Delhi, India. Sanjay Colony is a slum in Delhi, which is home to 11,000 people. Save the Children supports a mobile health clinic, staffed by a doctor, nurses and a pharmacist. Rachel Palmer / Image Save the Children
This Protocol will enable children who are victims of abuses and violations of their rights to submit complaints to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. A wide range of cases will be able to be brought to the attention of the international community – from child soldiers in Africa to children from minority groups who are discriminated against in Europe, from children who are forced into sexual exploitation, to those who are denied a fundamental right such as health or education – thus breaking the silence around these violations and forcing States to take responsibility for children.
Save the Children with over 80 international and national NGOs have been campaigning for many years to offer children a level of protection equivalent to that provided to adults by other core human rights treaties. Now that the international legal framework is created, the NGO coalition is dedicated to campaigning for the widespread ratification of the Protocol and making sure it is used to make a real difference in the struggle to protect children around the world.
A joint press release and a joint public statement are available in English. For further information on the OPCRC please contact Michael French hc.nerdlihcehtevasnull@leahcim.
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