MEDIA AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS TO BE DEBATED AT GENEVA
Press Release
HR/4302
MEDIA AND CHILDREN'S RIGHTS TO BE DEBATED AT GENEVA
19960926 GENEVA, 25 September (UN Information Service) -- The Committee on the Rights of the Child will hold a general discussion on issues relating to the media and children on 7 October.The meeting will bring together journalists, editors, representatives of United Nations agencies, human rights experts and non-governmental organizations.
The one-day debate will focus on three major issues: child participation in the media; protection of the child against harmful influences through the media; and respect for the integrity of the child in media reporting.
A detailed background paper on those issues has been prepared by Thomas Hammarberg of Sweden, a former journalist and former Secretary-General of Amnesty International. He is currently a member of the Committee and the Secretary-General's Special Representative for the situation of human rights in Cambodia.
Mr. Hammarberg's paper is a personal reflection based on the experience of Committee discussions with delegations from 60 countries over the past four years. In it he argues that the Convention on the Rights of the Child "recognizes the vulnerability of children in certain circumstances but also their capacity and strength for development. A major emphasis in the Convention is that each child is unique. All this can be undermined through negative stereotyping".
"Likewise," he continues, "the media should be careful not to violate the integrity of individual children in their reporting on, for instance, crime and sexual abuse. The Convention specifically protects the individual child from violations of his or her privacy, honour and reputation."
The objective of the general discussion is to enable the Committee to agree on concrete recommendations on the three main themes. Those recommendations would be widely disseminated with the aim of stimulating debate in media circles and schools of journalism on the importance of child rights in the media.
The Committee, a 10-member panel of independent experts, began its work of monitoring the implementation of the Convention in October 1991, a year
after the document entered into force. It is currently holding its thirteenth session in Geneva.
The Convention has been accepted by a greater number of States than any other international human rights instrument. Only the United Arab Emirates, Somalia, Oman, Cook Islands, Switzerland and the United States have yet to ratify it.
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