As part of the Public Consultation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, was held a National Committee for the Migration Protection of Children and Adolescents, coordinated by the Ministry of People’s Power for Foreign Relations, in order to generate contributions for the preparation of the report that the Venezuelan State must present in 2021 to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child.
During the consultation session held at the Antonio José de Sucre Yellow House, Caracas, the Vice Minister for Multilateral Issues and the General Director of the Office of Consular Relations of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry, Daniela Rodríguez and Eulalia Tabares, along with the Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Council, Larry Devoe, and representatives of the CNE, TSJ, Public Defense, Public Ministry, Ombudsman’s Office, Ministry of Popular Power for Internal Relations, Justice and Peace, Saime, Saren, Asonacop and Idenna, among other institutions.
Vice Minister Rodríguez congratulated and asserted that for Venezuela, in the multilateral sphere, the protection of children and adolescents, in this case the attention to cases of vulnerability in migration processes, is a supreme and priority element of State policy.
The Executive Secretary of the National Human Rights Council explained that for more than a month they have been conducting the consultation to prepare the report that must contain the measures and actions that the Venezuelan State has taken since 2012, when the last report was presented, until 2020, to guarantee the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, which it ratified in 1990, as reported a press release from the Chancellory.
He explained that the report should also contain the measures that Venezuela has taken to implement the observations and recommendations made by the UN Committee based on the last report delivered and the impact that has had the economic aggression and the unilateral coercive measures imposed by the United States Government on the guarantee of protection of the rights of children and adolescents..
Devoe recalled that in February they introduced a referral to the Prosecutor’s Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC) under the allegation, typified in the Rome Statute, that the imposed measures, which among their effects is forced migration, constitute crimes against humanity.
During the day, the director of the Office of Consular Relations, Eulalia Tabares, presented the Guide for the Protection and Communication with Children and Adolescents in situations of mobility or migration, prepared in the context of the inter-institutional agreement between the Venezuelan State and the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef), which seeks to prevent that as a result of forced migration the rights of Venezuelan infants and adolescents may be threatened or violated in the border area or in any other area of the national territory.
This instructional material constitutes a concrete achievement of the Inter-Institutional Child Mobility Board, in which participate 14 institutions in the country.
The Vice Minister for Multilateral Issues valued the guide as “a tangible expression of the will of the Venezuelan State to guarantee the supreme interest of the children and adolescents of our country.»
Finally, Devoe affirmed that the preparation of the report, beyond the formality implied by its presentation as a sovereign obligation of the Republic before the UN Committee, should be seen as an opportunity to specify all that has been advanced in the area of protection of children and adolescents, and promote pending issues in this area until their completion.
