Participants at OSCE meeting in Warsaw stress need to ensure safety and human rights of children in situations of risk, and to address new challenges

WARSAW, 11 October 2017 – Focused action and co-operation, including among governments and civil society, are vital to effectively ensuring the safety and human rights of children, and particularly children in situations of risk, participants said at the opening of the OSCE Human Dimension Seminar today in Warsaw.

The two-day event brings together more than 100 representatives of governments, international organizations and civil society, and is organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), in co-operation with the 2017 Austrian Chairmanship of the OSCE.

Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, ODIHR Director, stressed that situations of risk often place children in especially defenceless positions, and that more needs to be done to address both ongoing and new challenges.

“The particular vulnerability of children imposes a heightened obligation of due diligence for states to take measures to ensure their human rights to life, health, dignity and physical and mental integrity,” the ODIHR Director said. “Despite the important steps OSCE participating States have taken to address and prevent situations of risk and their causes, children’s rights and security are not fully secured. All stakeholders – governments, civil society, educators and parents – have to do more to meet emerging challenges and address existing problems.”

Ambassador Christian Strohal, Special Representative for the 2017 Austrian OSCE Chairmanship, said that co-operation among international organizations is vital to addressing challenges to children in situations of risk. He welcomed the opportunity the seminar provides for participants to take part in regional consultations of a UN study focusing on children deprived of liberty.

“We are very pleased to use synergies with the UN at the Human Dimension Seminar by supporting the in-depth Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty, commissioned by the UN Secretary-General,” Strohal said. “Our colleagues working on the Global Study would like to hear from you about the situation of children in the juvenile justice system, in immigration detention and in other administrative situations of deprivation of liberty. These discussions at the regional level of the OSCE are all the more relevant to this study, since the OSCE is a regional arrangement in the sense of Chapter VIII of the UN Charter.”

While highlighting Poland’s efforts to ensure the rights of the child, Jacek Czaputowicz, Undersecretary of State at Poland’s Foreign Ministry, said that challenges remain.

“Poland has a solid legal framework for protecting children’s rights, including through the institution of the Children’s Ombudsman,” Czaputowicz said. “Nevertheless, challenges in the protection of children’s rights still remain, and new problems are emerging, including in relation to new technologies, threats for migrant children, and trafficking in children.”

Working groups at the seminar will focus on the issues of children deprived of liberty, trafficking in children, and strategies for preventing situations of risk.