A/HRC/13/46
of children’s rights standards and commitments to children, including those undertaken at
the Millennium Summit, the Special Session on Children and, more recently, the Third
World Congress against Sexual Exploitation of Children and Adolescents. The call for
action issued as part of the Congress highlights the importance of close cooperation
between mandate holders, and its agenda provides a valuable framework for mutually
supportive actions and accelerated progress towards the achievement of the time-bound
targets agreed upon at the Congress; these targets are also of strategic relevance to the
process of follow-up to the study’s recommendations.
38.
Against this background, the Special Representative’s cooperation with the
Committee on the Rights of the Child gains crucial relevance. The United Nations study
was developed at the request of the Committee and is very strongly grounded in its work
and jurisprudence on the implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The
Committee has devoted special attention to violence against children, including in thematic
debates, general comments and during the consideration of States parties’ reports. At
present, all concluding observations include a specific section on the follow-up to the
study’s recommendations and on cooperation with the Special Representative.
39.
The Committee’s role is particularly valuable to the Special Representative’s
mandate, helping to inform advocacy initiatives, assess progress on the protection of
children from all forms of violence and support countries in their efforts. For this reason,
the Special Representative met the Committee soon after her appointment and has
developed very fruitful collaboration with it through regular meetings, exchanges of
information and through joint participation in strategic events and initiatives within and
beyond the United Nations system at the global, regional and national levels. Cooperation
with the Committee, and other treaty bodies, will remain high on the Special
Representative’s agenda.
40.
Collaboration with special procedures of the Human Rights Council has been
equally important. The Special Representative’s participation, soon after her appointment,
in their sixteenth annual meeting in 20095 was particularly useful in promoting the sharing
of information, the identification of good practices and the cross-fertilization of
experiences, as well as in prompting the consideration of mutually supportive activities for
violence prevention and elimination.
41.
As a cross-cutting issue, working to eliminate violence against children opens up
avenues for developing partnerships across mandates — including child-related mandates
— through cooperation with the Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially
women and children, the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery and, in
particular, the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child
pornography, with whom regular meetings have been held to exchange information and
strengthen collaboration. Similarly, cooperation will be valuable with violence-related
mandates, including on violence against women and torture; with economic, social and
cultural rights-related mandates, to help address the root causes of violence; as well as with
others, such as those mandates on the rights to education, freedom of opinion and
expression that can help to empower children and young people, enhance prevention efforts
and consolidate a culture of respect for children’s rights in society. These are important
partnerships that the Special Representative will continue to promote.
5
GE.10-10640
See A/HRC/12/47.
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