Cape Town - Looking forward to serving as the elected chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Professor Ann Skelton said the plan was to deepen efforts to bring about change needed on the ground.
“Children’s rights are under threat in many parts of the world,” said Skelton.
“Keeping states accountable for failure to improve children’s lives and encouraging better efforts is the daily bread of the committee.
“I look forward to an energetic two years in which the committee will deepen its efforts to bring about the needed change on the ground.”
Skelton, of the University of Pretoria’s (UP’s) Faculty of Law, has argued many landmark children’s rights cases in the Constitutional Court.
She is a highly rated researcher and a member of the Academy of Science of South Africa. She also holds the Unesco Chair in Education Law in Africa, and was a recipient of UP’s 2018 Exceptional Achievers Award, the International Juvenile Justice Observancy’s Juvenile Justice Without Borders International Award – which recognises 20 years of work on juvenile justice – and an Honorary World’s Children’s Prize, which was presented in 2012 by Queen Silvia of Sweden.
She recently chaired a three-week session in Geneva, Switzerland, before travelling to New York for a meeting with all the chairs of the UN Treaty Bodies (committees of experts that monitor the implementation of core international human rights treaties).
Skelton said the opportunity to lead the top global body on children’s rights was exciting, even though it came with a weighty responsibility.
“Working at an international level is an amazing opportunity because it provides a global bird’s-eye view on issues that we are concerned about.
“We are currently reviewing France, Jordan, São Tomé and Príncipe, Finland, Turkey and the UK.
“It is an incredible range of unique countries at different stages of implementing the Convention on the Rights of the Child. It is a privilege to examine all of these states from the angle of a UN Treaty Body.
On the other hand, by its nature, a bird’s-eye view means that one is far away from the subjects of our attention, and in the case of the Committee on the Rights of the Child, I’m speaking of children themselves,” she added.
“I found that when I worked at national level, I was also using international law, still striving to ensure that South Africa’s laws, policy and practices were in line with the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I felt closer to the children I was trying to assist, and I could see tangible improvements.”
Cape Times