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Iran Delegation at CRC Meeting

Iran Delegation at CRC Meeting
Iran Delegation at CRC Meeting

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is meeting at Palais des Nations in Geneva from January 12-29 to review the record of 14 countries including Iran.

The Iranian delegation comprising 13 members will participate in the 71st session of the CRC to defend its periodic report before the committee on January 11-12, reports IRNA.

Mahmoud Abbasi, deputy for human rights and international affairs at the Ministry of Justice is heading  the delegation. Mozafar Alvandi is secretary of the National Body on the Convention on the Rights of the Child (NBCRC). Officials from the Judiciary and the ministries of interior, foreign affairs and health are among the delegates.  

The CRC, composed of 18 independent international experts, monitors how nations that have ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child are complying with its obligations. It also reviews how member states are doing in two specific areas covered by additions to the convention known as optional protocols. These concern the trafficking in children, child prostitution and child pornography, and the involvement of children in armed conflict. A third Optional Protocol entered into force in April 2014 allows individual children to submit complaints regarding specific violations of their rights under the convention and its first two optional protocols.

The CRC meets in the Swiss city of Geneva and normally holds three sessions per year consisting of a three-week plenary and a one-week pre-session working group.

States that are party to the cnvention and the Optional Protocols must submit periodic written reports to the CRC every five years. The CRC examines each report and addresses its concerns and recommendations to the member states in the form of “concluding observations”. During the meetings committee members hold question and answer sessions with the respective government delegations.

Iran signed the Convention on the Rights of Child in September 1991 and ratified it in July 1994. Nearly 196 countries that have ratified the Convention are required to undergo regular examination of their record by the CRC. Senegal, Latvia, Oman, France, Ireland, Peru, Haiti, Zimbabwe, Maldives, Zambia, Benin, Brunei and Kenya are the other countries to be reviewed at this year’s meeting.

Financialtribune.com