About Us
Activities
The Committee seeks to accomplish its mission through:
Background
The NGO Committee on Children’s Rights was first established as the Working Group on the Rights of the Child of the NGO Committee on UNICEF, a few years prior to the adoption of the CRC by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, to promote information sharing and advocacy for the adoption of the Convention. Following the unanimous adoption of the CRC, the Working Group focused attention on its ratification at the national level and later, with near universal ratification of the Convention, shifted its work to educating about the Convention and promoting its implementation.
During the 1990s, active members of the Working Group developed other, more specialized working groups (Children in Armed Conflict, Education, and Girls), to focus on these emerging challenges within the NGO Committee on UNICEF.
On June 3, 2003, the Working Group broadened its work within the UN system by becoming a committee of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations affiliated with the United Nations: the NGO Committee on Children’s Rights. Our monthly meetings involve sharing information and ideas on children’s rights issues, briefings by UNICEF staff and other experts, and planning projects and activities intended to promote awareness, understanding and applications of the Convention and its Optional Protocols.
Over the years, the Committee has hosted panels for the annual NGO/DPI Conferences, organized side events and prepared written statements for advocacy at the various UN commissions, held conferences and symposia in collaboration with UNICEF, other UN agencies, missions and NGO Committees, organized youth fora, and prepared publications on various aspects of the dissemination and implementation of the CRC.
The Committee seeks to accomplish its mission through:
- Hosting educational programs to develop understanding of the CRC, its optional protocols and the processes by which their implementation is monitored
- Integrating the CRC into various UN processes through action at meetings of United Nations (UN) summits, commissions and other bodies
- Advocating with government missions at the UN
- Networking internationally to promote inclusion of civil society groups in the development and dissemination of country reports to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child
- Mobilizing children’s participation in implementation of their rights
- Advocating with member organizations to develop child rights based policies and practices within their institutions
- Commitment to implementing principles of human rights and social justice as the foundation of human development in childhood
- Campaign to ensure that the rights of all children everywhere are fully realized by using the CRC and its optional protocols
- Putting children’s rights at the center of sustainable development
- Promoting rights-based practices of non-discrimination, the best interests of children, children’s rights to survival, protection, development, and participation
Background
The NGO Committee on Children’s Rights was first established as the Working Group on the Rights of the Child of the NGO Committee on UNICEF, a few years prior to the adoption of the CRC by the United Nations General Assembly in 1989, to promote information sharing and advocacy for the adoption of the Convention. Following the unanimous adoption of the CRC, the Working Group focused attention on its ratification at the national level and later, with near universal ratification of the Convention, shifted its work to educating about the Convention and promoting its implementation.
During the 1990s, active members of the Working Group developed other, more specialized working groups (Children in Armed Conflict, Education, and Girls), to focus on these emerging challenges within the NGO Committee on UNICEF.
On June 3, 2003, the Working Group broadened its work within the UN system by becoming a committee of the Conference of Non-Governmental Organizations affiliated with the United Nations: the NGO Committee on Children’s Rights. Our monthly meetings involve sharing information and ideas on children’s rights issues, briefings by UNICEF staff and other experts, and planning projects and activities intended to promote awareness, understanding and applications of the Convention and its Optional Protocols.
Over the years, the Committee has hosted panels for the annual NGO/DPI Conferences, organized side events and prepared written statements for advocacy at the various UN commissions, held conferences and symposia in collaboration with UNICEF, other UN agencies, missions and NGO Committees, organized youth fora, and prepared publications on various aspects of the dissemination and implementation of the CRC.