The UN Resident Coordinator Francoise Jacob's Opening Speech on the Rights of the Child

By the decision of the Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, parliamentary hearings were invited on "Issues on the Rights of the Child presented in the RA Fourth National Report within the Framework of the UN Universal Periodic Review Procedure".

Today, we will have a chance to review several topics that came out during the CRC session in September, and my colleague from UNICEF is here to contribute. I won't go into these details. But I want to highlight four areas that we all need to keep in mind, as we joint efforts to fight for children rights.

• Peace is the precondition for children to benefit from a balanced and safe development, and to build their capital for the future. That is the priority #1 for Armenia.
• We need to put extra focus on particular vulnerabilities: children of the people from NK, children with disabilities, children of poor household and single parent headed households. I have met many parents of children with disabilities who are really struggling to
  access the most basic support and services.
• We need to understand and address new threats that impact all citizens, but with a much higher risk for children: environmental and
  climate threats (such as air pollution, natural disasters – add a couple of sentences on how the COP17 CBD agenda can be a great
  incentive for kids to work on climate and environment), hate speech, online harassment, misinformation/disinformation.
• Beyond education, and linked to health, is the wider issue of healthy living. As you know, in Armenia, some kids are malnourished, but equally, and perhaps more worrying, a growing number of children are overweight – increasingly also, and like in other countries we see how various new forms of stress affect their mental health. Promoting a healthy lifestyle, including through the education system, and through awareness campaigns, is something that requires comparatively little efforts but can have an important positive impact.

My last point is about the need for all of us, government institutions, local authorities, civil society, MPs, UN, to work consistently together on i) continuously improving the legislative and policy framework, ii) implement that framework, iii) disseminate knowledge across institutions and society, and iv) expand our advocacy towards the wider public, towards political and religious leaders.  

At the UN, we work on different dimensions of the normative agenda related to children, including education, social protection, poverty, health. We also have a very inspiring Youth Agenda. These provide guiding principles for our work in country. UN Armenia remains committed to supporting all relevant State authorities and other stakeholders to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, to deliver for all people in Armenia, and build a good future for the children of Armenia. The fight for rights and equality never ends.