A/HRC/21/38
armed groups, to take special measures to protect children in contact with the law, and to
take all feasible measures to ensure the release and reintegration of children used in armed
conflicts and to implement effective measures for their rehabilitation and reintegration into
society.
6.
The Special Representative also appreciates the adoption of resolutions 19/9, on
birth registration and the right of everyone to recognition everywhere as a person before the
law, and 17/18, on the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a
communications procedure, under which individuals or groups of individuals, including
children themselves, who claim to be victims of violations under the Convention and its two
optional protocols will be able to submit communications to the Committee for
examination.
II. Working with United Nations human rights mechanisms
7.
The Office of the Special Representative continues to work in close collaboration
with the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR)
with a view to mainstreaming child rights issues relating to armed conflict in the work of
human rights mechanisms, including the universal periodic review of the Human Rights
Council, the treaty bodies and the special procedures. Furthermore, recommendations
pertaining to the issue of children and armed conflict by United Nations human rights
mechanisms continue to be important advocacy tools in the work of the Special
Representative.
8.
The field presence of OHCHR and its deployment of human rights officers to
peacekeeping operations and political missions, such as in Colombia and Nepal, also
continue to make an important contribution to the monitoring and reporting of grave
violations against children during armed conflict.
9.
The Special Representative attaches great importance to the process for reporting to
the Committee on the Rights of the Child on the implementation of the Optional Protocol on
the involvement of children in armed conflict. During the period under review, the Office of
the Special Representative provided information relevant to the issue of children and armed
conflict to the Committee, in particular ahead of the Committee’s country reviews for the
Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar and Thailand. The Office is pleased that its
concerns were reflected in the Committee’s concluding observations and will continue to
use the relevant observations of the Committee for its advocacy purposes. The Office
encourages States parties to the Convention to implement the recommendations of the
Committee as a matter of priority and to submit timely reports under the Optional Protocol
to the Committee.
10.
The Office of the Special Representative has also submitted input to the universal
periodic review on Pakistan and Sri Lanka, and intends to submit information on the Central
African Republic, Colombia and Mali for consideration by the Working Group on the
Universal Periodic Review during its upcoming sessions.
11.
The Special Representative reiterates the recommendation made in her previous
report (A/HRC/18/38), in which she encouraged the Working Group on the Universal
Periodic Review to systematically take into account the concluding observations made by
the Committee on the Rights of the Child when reviewing a State submission. The Special
Representative urges States parties to accord priority to the implementation of relevant
recommendations of the Working Group, with the assistance of the international community
as needed.
5