UNITED NATIONS
United Nations News Centre
14 January 2014 – A new legal instrument allowing children or their representatives to file a complaint with the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child is set to go into effect in April, following its final required ratification, the United Nations today announced.
Costa Rica became the tenth country to ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the child on a Communications Procedure, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) announcement noted.
“The Optional Protocol gives children who have exhausted all legal avenues in their own countries the possibility of applying to the Committee,” said Kirsten Sandberg, Chairperson of the Geneva-based Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors implementation of the treaty and its protocols.
“It means children are able to fully exercise their rights and are empowered to have access to international human rights bodies in the same way adults are under several other human rights treaties.”
Starting in April, individual children or groups of children from the countries that have ratified the Optional Protocol will be able to submit complaints to the Committee on specific violations related to the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
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