NGO Working Group on Children without Parental Care

Working Group on Children without Parental Care The Working Group's main aim is to 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. Convenor: International Social Service (Nigel Cantwell and Sylvain Vité) Overall objective The NGO Working Group was set up in November 2004 following the Decision of the Committee on the Rights of the Child in September 2004 recommending that the Commission on Human Rights itself set up a working group to develop international standards for the protection of children without parental care. In this context, for its initial months of operation (November 2004-April 2005), the Working Group's specific initial objective was to ensure that the Commission on Human Rights take on board this recommendation. Current activity Draft guidelines on the protection of children without parental care were prepared by the working group during 2005 and early 2006. Those draft guidelines were then reviewed by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and used as a basis for discussion during a governemtal expert meeting. Read the latest version (2006) of the draft guidelines currently being developed (English Español Français Português Arabic) The Group of friends (Group of States supporting the guidelines) met twice: in July in Geneva and in September in New-York. The guidelines are expected to be adopted in September 2008 at the UN General Assmbly. On 9-11 August, in Brasilia, a meeting of governmental experts took place hosted by the Brasilian government in order to review the draft guidelines. NGOs were not present during this meeting but the convenors of the NGO working group on children without parental care - attended the meeting in order to answer questions regarding the draft guidelines. This working meeting constituted a good start to the process of government examination of the draft Guidelines. Approximately 40 governments were represented, from all continents. Three members of the CRC Committee took part: Jaap Doek (chair), Norberto Liwski (Argentina) and Rosa Maria Ortiz (Paraguay). Brazil chaired the meeting. Brazil has agreed to take overall responsibility for ensuring the follow up to the meeting and set up an advisory group of volunteer governments from those present to make sure that the outcomes reflect the debates. The CRC Committee is committed to continuing to "accompany" the process. During it was requested that ISS served as secretariat for the follow-up. ISS will therefore be drawing up a full list, point by point, of issues raised and modifications suggested at the meeting (by mid-September). This will be submitted to Brazil and reviewed by the advisory group. Following this, a new proposed draft will be drawn up on that basis. After review by Brazil and the advisory group, that draft is due to be widely circulated to governments and others, hopefully before the end of the year. Further opportunities for wider consultation will need to be organised thereafter. Side Event on the "Need for International Guidelines for the Protection of Children without Prental Care" On 15 September 2005, just before the Day of General Discussion which was devoted this year to children without parental care, the working group organised an NGO event. Around 60 people attended the NGO panel presentation, followed by a lively discussion and a market place in which NGOs could share their work. You can have a look at the presentations given during that event: Launch of the first paper of the 'First Resort' series David Tolfree, Save the Children UK Child participation in setting standards for out-of-home care Monika Niederle, FICE on behalf of the Quality4Children project Preventing separation Zeina Allouche, SOS Children's Villages Lebanon Piloting practice standards for the out-of-home care of children Diane Swales, Save the Children UK

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