Human Rights Council calls for child sex rights

Briefing.

From CFNews: Over the past few weeks, the Geneva based Human Rights Council debated many issues, including the elimination of violence against women and the rights of the child. This culminated with a decision to extend the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on violence against women, its causes and consequences for a period of 3 years. The mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography was also extended.

On March 20th, a resolution on the Rights of the Child was bought to the floor. Many elements of the resolution are concerning to pro-life/ pro-family advocates. For example, the resolution, under the umbrella of the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of Health, includes a call for governments to '(…) pay particular attention to …reproductive and sexual health.' Although many of the other concerns listed are legitimate and should be preoccupations for the international community, the reference to the need for 'sexual and reproductive health' (often used by U.N. agencies to mean family planning and abortion) undermines the promotion of the real health needs of children and adolescents.

Furthermore, the resolution also calls on state parties to provide children affected by HIV/AIDS with 'access to voluntary and confidential testing, reproductive health care and education, access to pharmaceutical products and medical technologies.'

Patrick Buckley, from the Society of Protection for the Unborn Children expressed concerns about the language quoted above saying that 'clearly this language while primarily dealing with the HIV/ AIDS issue could also be interpreted as providing children with access to sex education together with access to contraception and abortion without parental knowledge or consent.'

Such language contributes to the notion that children's rights supersede parental rights. There is an inherent contradiction within the resolution. The document states that 'reaffirming the importance of the family as a basic unit of society and that such should be strengthened; (…) all the institutions of society should respect children's rights and secure their well-being and render appropriate assistance to parents, families, legal guardians and other caregivers.'

Acknowledging the importance of the family is a positive step. However, parental rights are trumped and disrespected in many official U.N. documents which do not serve to ensure children's well- being.

Update: Further to our recent alert urging you to help block the Council of Europe
endorsing abortion Europe-wide, we are happy to be able to provide you
with two in-depth briefings to help you when writing to members of the
Council's Parliamentary Assembly. The first briefing, produced by SPUC, is
entitled Abortion law and the Council of Europe and can be downloaded as a
PDF at http://www.spuc.org.uk/pace1.pdf The second briefing, produced by
the Southern Cross Bioethics Institute (SCBI), is entitled Response to
draft report on abortion by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of
Europe's Committee on Equal Opportunities for Women and Men and can be
downloaded as an PDF at http://www.spuc.org.uk/response.pdf Both of these
briefings plus our original alert can be found on our Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe campaign page
http://www.spuc.org.uk/pace