UN and Thailand getting ready for the Committee on the Rights of the Child

©Lawan Kriangkvaiwech

The United Nations Country Team (UNCT) was recently invited by the Thai Government to assist the country’s delegation to Geneva in their preparation for the review of Thailand’s latest report to the Committee on the Rights of the Child.

The simulated committee review took place on 9 January 2012 in Bangkok. The UNCT took the role of the Committee and asked questions to the Thai delegation to prepare them for facing the Committee in Geneva, Switzerland on 25 January.

All State Parties to the Convention on the Rights of the Child are required to submit regular reports to the Committee, an independent body of experts that monitors the implementation of the Convention in countries that are a party to it.  The upcoming review will examine Thailand’s combined Third and Fourth Periodic Reports to the Committee since it ratified the Convention in 1992.  

The Thai delegation participating in the simulation consisted of Senior Thai Officials from Government Ministries, members of the Majestic Group and two children, continuing a Thai tradition established in 1998.  

Thailand was the first country to include children in its delegation before the Committee. 

The UNCT in Thailand operates under the Resident Coordinator’s system, which seeks to synchronize the work all of the UN entities carrying out operational activities for development, emergency, recovery and transition in programme countries.  Therefore, members of the mock Committee were drawn from the resident agencies UNICEF, UNESCO, UNOHCHR, ILO, IOM and UNHCR.

Highlights of the mock session included a discussion of Thailand’s innovative approaches to implementing Education for All, such as the requirements that teachers visit their students at home at least once every year.  The mock Committee also acknowledged and commended the Thai Government representatives for having lifted their reservation on Article 7 of the Convention in October 2011.  Article 7 provides the right for all children to be registered immediately after birth, have a name, and acquire a nationality.  

The UNCT acknowledged and thanked the Thai Government for their efforts to implement the Convention and confirmed its continuous partnership. Recommendations for common areas of work included: (a) Increasing the capacity of local government officials to register children at birth, (b) Ensuring ongoing monitoring and capacity building in all sectors of the Thai education system, including formal, non-formal, informal, public and private education, (c) Ratification of the Convention Against Discrimination in Education; and (d) Promotion and participation of Children and Youth Councils at the national, provincial and district levels, as provided for in the National Child and Youth Development Promotion Act of 2007. 

By Junita Mala Douglass, UNESCO Bangkok