Preparatory Committee for the Special Session of the General
Assembly on Children
Third substantive session
11-15 June 2001
Third revised draft outcome document, paragraphs
39-58*
A world fit for children
Third revised draft submitted by the Bureau of
the Committee
Contents
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Paragraphs
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- Declaration**
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| Review of progress and lessons learned**
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| Plan of Action**
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| Creating a world fit for children**
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| Goals, strategies and actions**
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- Promoting healthy lives**
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| Providing quality education**
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| Protecting against abuse, exploitation and violence**
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| Combating HIV/AIDS
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40–42
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| Mobilizing resources
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43–54
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| Follow-up actions and monitoring
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55–58
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39. (continued)*
Elimination of child labour
• Develop and implement effective time-bound programmes
to eliminate the worst forms of child labour through prevention,
protection and rehabilitation, with particular emphasis
on quality basic education for all as a key strategy.
• Take effective measures to protect children from
economic exploitation and from performing any work that
is likely to be hazardous or to interfere with their education,
or to be harmful to their health or their physical, mental,
spiritual, moral or social development.
• Improve living and working conditions for children
who work, by promoting quality basic education and social
and economic policies aimed at poverty reduction to help
families of working children with employment and income-generating
opportunities.
• Strengthening the collection, analysis and dissemination
of desegregated data on child labour to raise awareness,
inform policy-making and direct action to address its root
causes.
• Promote awareness of children’s rights to protection
from economic exploitation, and mobilise partners in eliminating
child labour.
• Mainstream action against child labour into national
poverty reduction and development efforts, especially in
policies and programmes in the areas of health, education,
employment and social protection.
Elimination of sexual exploitation of children
• Raise awareness of the illegality and harmful
consequences of the sexual abuse, exploitation and trafficking
of children.
• Enlist the support of the private sector, including
the tourism industry, and the media for a campaign against
sexual exploitation and trafficking of children.
• Identify and address the underlying causes of
the sexual exploitation of children and trafficking.
• Protect the safety of victims of trafficking and
exploitation, and provide support for the rehabilitation
and reintegration.
• Take concerted national and international action
to criminalize and penalize the sale of children and sexual
exploitation, abuse and trafficking.
• Monitor and share information regionally and internationally
on the cross-border trafficking of children, strengthen
the capacity of border and law enforcement officials to
stop trafficking and provide or strengthen training for
them to respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms
of all those, particularly women and children, who are victims
of trafficking.
• Take necessary measures, including through enhanced
international cooperation, to combat the criminal use of
information technologies, such as the Internet, for the
sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography,
other commercial purposes and other forms of violence against
children and adolescents.
Combating HIVAIDS
40. The HIV/AIDS pandemic is having a devastating effect
on children and those who provide care for them. This includes
the 13 million children orphaned by AIDS, the nearly 600,000
infants infected every year through mother-to-child transmission,
and the millions of HIV-positive young people living with
the stigma of HIV but without access to adequate counselling,
care and support.
41. To combat the devastating impact of HIV/AIDS on children,
we resolve to take urgent and aggressive action as agreed
at the special session of the General Assembly on HIV/AIDS,
and to place particular emphasis on the following agreed goals
and commitments:
(a) By 2003, establish time-bound national targets
to achieve the internationally agreed global prevention goal
to reduce by 2005 HIV prevalence among young men and women
aged 15-24 in the most affected countries by 25 per cent and
by 25 per cent globally by 2010;
(b) By 2005, reduce the proportion of infants infected
with HIV by 20 per cent, and by 2010 reduce it by 50 per cent,
by ensuring that 80 per cent of pregnant women accessing anti-natal
care have information, counselling and other HIV prevention
services available to them, increasing the availability of
and by providing access for HIV-infected women and babies
to effective treatment to reduce mother-to-child transmission
of HIV, as well as through effective interventions for HIV-infected
women, including voluntary and confidential counselling and
testing, access to treatment, especially anti-retroviral therapy
and, where appropriate, breast milk substitutes and the provision
of a continuum of care;
(c) By 2003, develop, and by 2005 implement national
policies and strategies to build and strengthen governmental,
family and community capacities to provide a supportive environment
for orphans and girls and boys infected and affected by HIV/AIDS,
including by providing appropriate counselling and psycho-social
support; ensure their enrolment in school and access to shelter,
good nutrition, health and social services, on an equal basis
with other children; and protect orphans and vulnerable children
from all forms of abuse, violence, exploitation, discrimination,
trafficking and loss of inheritance;
42. To achieve these goals, we will implement the following
strategies and actions:
• By 2003, ensure the development and implementation
of multisectoral, national strategies and financing plans
for combating HIV/AIDS that: address the epidemic in forthright
terms; confront stigma, silence and denial; address gender
and age-based dimensions of the epidemic; eliminate discrimination
and marginalization; involve partnerships with civil society
and the business sector and the full participation of people
living with HIV/AIDS, those in vulnerable groups and people
most at risk, particularly women and young people;
• By 2010, ensure that at least 95 per cent of young
men and women aged 15 to 24 have access to the information,
education, including peer education and youth-specific HIV
education, and services necessary to develop the life skills
required to reduce their vulnerability to HIV infection;
in full partnership with youth, parents, families, educators
and health care providers;
• By 2005, develop and make significant progress
in implementing comprehensive care strategies to strengthen
family- and community-based care, including that provided
by the informal sector, and health-care systems to provide
and monitor treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS, including
infected children, and to support individuals, households,
families and communities affected by HIVA/IDS; improve the
effectiveness of supply systems, financing plans and referral
mechanisms required to provide access to affordable medicines,
including antiretroviral drugs, diagnostics and related
technologies, and quality medical, palliative and psycho-social
care.
• By 2005, implement measures to increase the capacity
of women and adolescent girls to protect themselves from
the risk of HIV infection, principally through the provision
of health-care services, including sexual and reproductive
health, and through prevention education that promotes gender
equality within a culturally and gender sensitive framework.
• By 2003, develop and/or strengthen strategies,
policies and programmes that recognize the importance of
the family in reducing vulnerability and inter alia, in
educating and guiding children, and take account of cultural,
religious and ethical factors to reduce the vulnerability
of children and young people by ensuring access of both
girls and boys to primary and secondary education, including
on HIV/AIDS in curricula for adolescents; ensuring safe
and secure environments, especially for young girls; expanding
good quality youth-friendly information and sexual health
education and counselling service; strengthening reproductive
and sexual health programmes; and involving families and
young people in planning, implementing and evaluating HIV/AIDS
prevention and care programmes, to the extent possible.
• Urge the international community, particularly
donor countries, civil society and the private sector, to
effectively complement national programmes to support programmes
for children orphaned or made vulnerable by HIV/AIDS in
affected regions and in countries at high risk, and to direct
special assistance to sub-Saharan Africa.
• By 2003, develop and begin to implement national
strategies that incorporate HIV/AIDS awareness, prevention,
care and treatment elements into programmes or actions that
respond to emergency situations, recognizing that populations
destabilized by armed conflict, humanitarian emergencies
and natural disasters, including refugees, internally displaced
persons and especially women and children, are at increased
risk of exposure to HIV infection; and where appropriate,
factor HIV/AIDS components into international assistance
programmes.
C. Mobilizing resources
43. Promoting healthy lives, including good nutrition
and control of infectious diseases, providing quality education,
protecting children from abuse, exploitation, violence and
armed conflict, and combating HIV/AIDS are achievable goals
and are clearly affordable for the global community.
44. The primary responsibility for ensuring an enabling
environment in which the rights and well-being of each and
every child are protected and promoted rests with each individual
country, recognizing that new and additional international
resources and assistance are required for this purpose.
45. Investments in children are extraordinarily productive
if they are sustained over the medium to long term. Investing
in children lays the foundation for a just society that respects
their rights, a strong economy and a world free of poverty.
46. Implementation of this Plan of Action will require
the allocation of significant additional human, financial
and material resources, nationally and internationally, within
the framework of enhanced international cooperation, including
North-South and South-South cooperation to contribute to the
economic and social development necessary to guarantee the
fulfillment of the rights and well-being of all children;
47. Accordingly, we resolve to pursue, among others, the
following global targets and actions for mobilizing resources
for children:
(a) Urge the developed countries that have not done
so to strive to meet the targets of 0.7 per cent of their
gross national product (GNP) for overall development assistance,
and the targets of earmarking 0.15 per cent to 0.2 per cent
of GNP as official development assistance for least developed
countries as soon as possible;
(b) Provide full financing for the speedy and effective
implementation of the enhanced Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
Initiative, and cancel all official bilateral debts of those
countries and make a demonstrable commitment to poverty reduction;
(c) Work towards adopting and implementing a policy
that offers developing countries easier access to the markets
of developed countries, including duty-free and quota-free
access for all products from least developed countries;
(d) Mobilize new and substantial additional resources
for social development at both the national and international
levels, to reduce disparities within and among countries,
and ensure the effective and sound use of existing resources.
Further, ensure that social expenditures that benefit children
are protected and prioritized during both short-term and long-term
economic and financial crises:
(e) Explore new ways of generating public and private
financial resources, inter alia, through the reduction of
excessive military expenditures and the arms trade and investment
in arms production and acquisition, including global military
expenditures, taking into consideration national security
requirements;
(f) Encourage donor and recipient countries, based
on mutual agreement and commitment, to fully implement the
20/20 Initiative, in line with the Oslo and Hanoi Consensus
documents, to ensure universal access to basic social services.
48. We will give priority attention to meeting the needs
of the world’s most vulnerable children in developing countries,
in particular in least developed countries and sub-Saharan
Africa.
49. We will also give special attention to the needs of
landlocked developing countries, small island developing countries
and countries in transition in their efforts to improve the
well-being of children and the protection of their rights.
50. We will promote technical cooperation between countries
in order to share positive experiences and strategies in the
implementation of this Plan of Action.
51. We commit ourselves to mobilizing resources for children
in a way that prioritizes the social sector over military
expenditures.
52. The fulfillment of the rights and well-being of children
merits new partnerships with civil society, including with
NGOs and the private sector, and innovative arrangements for
mobilizing additional resources, both private and public.
53. We call on the private sector to assume greater corporate
social responsibility and assess the impact of its policies
and practices on children, and to make the benefits of research
and development in science, medical technology, food fortification,
environmental protection, education and mass communication
available to all children, particularly to those in greatest
need.
54. We call for the full collaboration of all relevant
United Nations bodies, and invite the Bretton Woods institutions,
multilateral agencies and civil society to take determined,
sustained action and give high priority to the achievement
of the goals of this Plan of Action.
D. Follow-up actions and monitoring
55. To facilitate the implementation of actions committed
to in this document, we will develop by the end of 2002, national
and, where appropriate, regional action plans with a set of
specific time-bound and measurable goals and targets based
on this plan of action and the Convention on the Rights of
the Child, with appropriate adaptation to specific country
situations. We will therefore strengthen our national planning
and ensure the necessary coordination, implementation and
funding. We will make these goals for children an integral
part of our national government policies as well as of national
and subnational development programmes, poverty reduction
strategies, sector-wide approaches and other relevant development
plans, in cooperation with all relevant civil society actors,
including with children themselves.
56. We will ensure full and regular monitoring of progress
towards the goals and targets in this Plan of Action, other
relevant international development targets and the fulfillment
of child right, paying particular attention to transparency
and accountability at the national level. Accordingly, we
will strengthen our national statistical capacity to collect,
analyze and disaggregate data, including by sex, age and other
relevant disparities. We will enhance international cooperation
to support statistical capacity-building efforts and build
community capacity for self-monitoring and planning.
57. We will conduct periodic reviews of progress at the
national and subnational levels in order to more effectively
address obstacles and accelerate actions. At the regional
level, such reviews will be used to share best practices,
strengthen partnerships, and accelerate progress. Therefore:
(a) We encourage States Parties, to include, in their
reports to the Committee on the Rights of the Child, information
on measures taken and results achieved in the implementation
of this Plan of Action, and invite the Committee on the Rights
of the Child to include, in its review of national reports,
an analysis of these measures to achieve the goals and targets
for children. In order that it may fulfill this responsibility
we will strengthen the Committee on the Rights of the Child
and ensure that it has the necessary resources and support;
(b) We invite the United Nations Children’s Fund,
as the world’s lead agency for children, to continue to periodically
prepare and disseminate, in collaboration with relevant United
Nations organs, agencies and mechanisms, the Bretton Woods
institutions and other multilateral bodies, as well as with
civil society, including children, information on actions
taken by individual countries and the international community
in support of the objectives of this Plan of Action, including
models of best practice;
(c) We request the Secretary-General to report regularly
to the General Assembly on the progress made in implementing
the Plan of Action, and to include, in his annual reports
to the Security Council on children and armed conflict, information
on progress made towards the protection of children from the
impact of armed conflict as stipulated in this Plan of Action.
58. We hereby commit ourselves to spare no efforts to
create a world fit for children, building on the achievements
of the past decade and guided by the provisions of the Convention
on the Rights of the Child and the principle of a first call
for children. In solidarity with a broad range of partners,
we will lead a global movement for children that creates an
unstoppable momentum for change. We make this solemn pledge,
secure in the knowledge that in realizing the rights of children
we serve the best interests of all humanity. |
