CHILDREN WITHOUT PARENTAL CARE
The NGO Working Group on Children without Parental Care was established to initiate, promote and contribute to drawing up international standards for the protection of children without parental care and to secure their adoption by the UN General Assembly.
UN Guidelines on the Appropriate Use and Conditions of Alternative Care for Children - Submitted to the UN General Assembly
The Guidelines seek to ensure that, firstly, children do not find themselves in out-of-home care unnecessarily and, secondly, that the type and quality of out-of-home care provided is appropriate to the rights and specific needs of the child concerned. These guidelines elaborate on existing principles in the CRC and are drafted in six languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, Arabic and Vietnamese.
In September 2005 the Committee on the Rights of the Child dedicated its Day of General Discussion to children without parental care based on their observation of a significant gap between State responsibilities under the CRC and implementation in practice. The Working Group submitted an annotated outline for the proposed guidelines to the discussion day and encouraged the Committee to support this initiative. In its recommendations, the Committee proposed an expert meeting to prepare international standards for the protection of children without parental care to be approved by the General Assembly in 2006. Draft guidelines on the protection of children without parental care were prepared by the NGO Working Group and the Committee reviewed this draft in May 2006.
In August 2006, the government of Brazil hosted an inter-governmental meeting of technical experts to further review this draft. Some 40 governments participated, from all continents, as well as three Committee members. Although NGOs were not invited to attend, the convenors of the Working Group participated in order to answer questions on the draft. The government of Brazil took lead responsibility for follow-up on the meeting and set up a 15-country “Group of Friends” to further review the document. The Committee committed to continuing to “accompany” the process. The revised Guidelines, resulting from these consultations, were presented to the Committee in May 2007 after which Brazil and the Group of Friends initiated a period of awareness raising amongst other States.
During this period references to the guidelines were included in various resolutions from the Human Rights Council (HRC) and the General Assembly. During the HRC’s 7th session, the Working Group participated in the drafting of a paragraph in the Child Rights Omnibus resolution which committed the HRC to advance the draft during the upcoming 8th session. This commitment resulted in a Special Event, in June 2008, which included an expert panel, an interactive dialogue with States, and oral statements by the Working Group’s co-convenors, the International Social Service and SOS-Kinderdorf International. Ms Khattab, member of the Committee, emphasised their close involvement stating that ‘all the Committee’s views and comments are included in the draft’ encouraging their adoption at the General Assembly ‘as a matter of priority.’ (see CRIN-News and the OHCHR webcast below). Brazil now intends to build on support expressed during this event and to present the Guidelines as a HRC resolution during the 9th session for final adoption at the UN General Assembly by the end of 2008.
In the first half of 2009, Brazil and the Group of Friends held 9 consultations with the Missions based in Geneva to fine tune the text. The Working Group with Nigel Cantwell (international consultant) provided expert advice on the principles behind the text during this period. As a result of these consultations the Human Rights Council on June 17, 2009 adopted by consensus a procedural resolution A/HRC/11/L.13 submitting the “Guidelines for the Alternative Care of Children” to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York for consideration with a view to their adoption on the 20th anniversary of the UNCRC in November 2009. For the upcoming period, it is important that lobbying activities are undertaken to ensure the adoption of the text at the UNGA. A one page fact sheet and lobbying tool has been prepared and can be accessed below to encourage individual Governments to adopt the text. See attached the text of the lobbying factsheet.
For more information please contact:
Alan Kikuchi-White
Geneva Representative
SOS-Kinderdorf International
Liaison & Advocacy Office
Rue de Varembé 1, 1202 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel. +41.22.734.24.43 Fax +41.22.740.11.45
Mia Dambach
Children’s Rights Specialist
International Social Service
International Reference Centre for the Rights of Children Deprived of their Family
Quai du Seujet 32, 1201 Geneva, Switzerland
Tel: + 41 22 906 77 04 Fax: + 41 22 906 77 01
E-mail: mia.dambach@iss-ssi.org
Papers and Presentations
- Patricia Lamego, Project Manager, Cabinet of the Special Secretariat for Human Rights of the Presidency of the Republic of Brazil, as Coordinator of the Group of Friends.
- Moushira Khattab, Member Committee on the Rights of the Child.
- Alexandra Yuster, Senior Adviser - Social Welfare and Justice Systems Child Protection Section, Programme Division – UNICEF.
- Nigel Cantwell, Expert in the Rights of the Child, representative of civil society.
- Christina Baglietto, Child Rights Specialist, International Social Service.
- Kersti Kukk, youth representative, SOS-Kinderdorf International.
2005-2006 - The Working Group presented a paper on the Development of International Standards for the Protection of Children deprived of Parental Care at an international conference on Child Rights, Role of Families and Alternative Care Policies. The Working Group also organized a side event on the "Need for International Guidelines for the Protection of Children without Parental Care" on 15 September 2005.
- Launch of the first paper of the 'First Resort' series by David Tolfree, Save the Children UK
- Child participation in setting standards for out-of-home care by Monika Niederle, FICE on behalf of the Quality4Children project
- Preventing separation by Zeina Allouche, SOS Children's Villages Lebanon