Luxembourg Reflects on Past & Future of Children's Rights on 30th Anniversary of UN Convention on Rights of the Child

Today, Wednesday 20 November 2019, marked the 30th anniversary of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), adopted on 20 November 1989. 

Ratified by 196 countries, the UNCRC has become one of the most universally accepted human rights agreements in history, which has helped to improve the lives of children everywhere. In Luxembourg, the Convention was ratified by the Chamber of Deputies in December 1993. The Ministry of National Education, Childhood and Youth is responsible for coordinating the implementation of these rights at ministerial level. 

To celebrate the UNCRC's 30th anniversary, Luxembourg has been hosting a series of events that began in September and are continuing in November 2019. In this context, the Kannerbureau Wooltz and Zentrum fir politesch Bildung organised, in partnership with the Ministry of National Education, Children and Youth, Luxembourg's first Children's Conference on Saturday 16 November 2019 at the Geesseknäppchen Forum. The event, attended by Luxembourg's Minister of National Education, Children and Youth, Claude Meisch, allowed some 50 children and 30 adults to explore what participation means to them through group discussions and other reflective activities.

Also in preparation for World Children's Day 2019, Luxembourg's Prime Minister Xavier Bettel received two reports on children's rights in the Grand Duchy: the 19th Annual Report to the Government on the situation of the rights of the child in Luxembourg and on the activities of the Ombuds Committee for the Rights of the Child, and the UNICEF Luxembourg report "30 years of the Convention on the Rights of the Child in Luxembourg".

The Ombuds Committee for the Rights of the Child's 19th Annual Report contains a list of issues to be addressed in the context of children's rights in Luxembourg, as well as a series of recommendations for the submission of the Luxembourg report to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child. These observations and recommendations touch on a wide range of subjects, such as children's rights in the Constitution, inclusive education, status for unaccompanied minors or the question of the placement of minors in places of deprivation of liberty.

In addition, UNICEF Luxembourg used this 30th anniversary as an opportunity to reflect on the work that has been done since the adoption of the UNCRC but also, and above all, to look to the future to see how to meet the remaining challenges. In this context, UNICEF Luxembourg President Maryse Arendt, accompanied by Lisa, one of UNICEF Luxembourg's youth ambassadors, submitted a report to the Prime Minister and Education Minister Claude Meisch on Tuesday 19 November 2019. The report examines the considerable progress  made with regard to children's rights in Luxembourg since the adoption of the UNCRC, but also invites the Luxembourg Government and stakeholders to further accelerate the implementation of children's rights, so that each child can enjoy all these rights.

The UNICEF Luxembourg report particularly deals with issues such as poverty, violence against children and their participation in decisions that affect them. It provides a non-exhaustive list of 30 recommendations to further improve the situation of children in the Grand Duchy. During their meeting with Prime Minister Xavier Bettel and Minister Claude Meisch on Tuesday, UNICEF Luxembourg more specifically discussed the following points: the development of a national coordinating framework for children's rights; the importance of implementing a comprehensive system for collecting comparative and disaggregated data on the UNCRC; making children's rights an integral part of school curricula at all levels of education, in accordance with Article 29 of the UNCRC; the acceleration of the creation of the "House of the Child" grouping together all the activities necessary for the diagnosis and treatment of child victims and witnesses of violence in one place.

It was also in this context of the 30th anniversary of the UNCRC that Luxembourg has reaffirmed its strong commitment to the reform of youth justice. The government will thus introduce a comprehensive reform of national youth protection legislation to strengthen children's rights guaranteed by the UNCRC.