Los niños aún no están adecuadamente involucrados en el trabajo del ACNUDH. Por favor, ¿podría darnos alguna razón para esto?.

Carta enviada por Konstantinos en nombre del Equipo Asesor de Niños* 

a la Alta Comisionada de las Naciones Unidas para los Derechos Humanos, Michelle Bachelet, 

luego de su discurso durante las celebraciones del 70 aniversario 

de la Declaración Universal de los Derechos Humanos el pasado diciembre.

"Si tiene el poder, permita que haya niños en el Comité de las Naciones Unidas".

23rd January 2019.

Ms Michelle Bachelet  

High Commissioner, OHCHR, 

Palais des Nations, 

CH-1211, 

Geneva 10.

Your Excellency,

My name is Konstantinos Papachristou and I had the honour to be the keynote speaker at the celebration of the 70 years of the Universal Declaration for Human rights. You can find my speech here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcUKlnRM4t8&t=21s  

I represented the Day of General Discussion 2018 Children’s Advisory Team (information below) and alongside me there was a video sent by Nayeli Quiroz, who is also a member of the Children’s Advisory Team; her video covered the topic of human rights. 

As a children’s rights activist who believes in the importance of child participation, I was really happy to see that events as such are organized with your support, events that include child speakers who have the ability to share their stories. I think that the event on the 13  of December was a really good starting point which could also be further developed by offering more opportunities to children to raise awareness and express their ideas through your support and championing. 

I was also a member of the panel that asked you questions and I would like to follow up with some further enquiries.  

During the event, I asked you how we can implement child participation effectively. I am keen to know how OHCHR is planning to further implement child participation in its different activities and events? 

As a follow-up question, what do you reckon is the most effective way of including children in the decision-making and law-making process? And at the same time, how can we avoid undermining the role of children human rights defenders while ensuring that the cooperation between children and adults is on equal terms? 

I have collected some questions and recommendations from the other Child Advisors 

1. Children are not yet adequately involved in the work of OHCHR. Please could you give us any reasons for this?  

• In the future we would like to see children take part not only on special

commemorations but ground work as well.  

2. What non-tokenistic and non-decorative plans do you have to adequately involve children in the fight against human rights violations worldwide?  

3. How closely do you work with the Committee on the Rights of the Child? 

• If you have the power, please let there be children on the UN Committee on the 

Rights of the Child! 

  

You can access the profiles of the Child Advisors here. Many of the Child Advisors will be renewing their mandate until February 2020. 

Thank you for inviting me to be part of the 13 December celebration activities and I along with the rest of the Child Advisors look forward to receiving your response to this letter and hope for more opportunities to work together this year; a very special 30 year of the UNCRC.  

With many thanks and best wishes,

Konstantinos 

*The DGD Child Advisory Team and Child Rights Connect Child Rights Connect (a global network of children’s organisations working for full  implementation of the UNCRC and its Optional Protocols) presented a successful proposal to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child for its 2018 Day of General Discussion (DGD) on protecting and empowering children as human rights defenders.  

Child Rights Connect set up a Children’s Advisory Team of 21 Child Advisors, from 19 countries and covering all regions of the world, to make sure that children were at the heart of the preparations, implementation and follow-up of the DGD. Since February 2018, the Child Advisors participated in tasks including the development of the DGD programme, the DGD global children’s consultation methodology, a child-friendly DGD concept note, the UN Committee’s Working Methods for child participation in DGDs and as DGD speakers and moderators!.