DELIVERED BY Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights AT Expert Conference - Changing the narrative: promoting positive change with children around 40 years of civil society advocacy in Geneva My warm thanks to Child Rights Connect for the invitation to speak today. Congratulations on your 40 years of commitment to child rights – my Office is very grateful for our past and continuing collaborations. I am delighted to see many children here in the room and online today. For me, this shows the real progress we are making in ensuring children’s voices are heard in the conversations that matter. Let’s do everything we can to make sure direct discussions like this continue. Dear friends, This conference is about changing the narrative on children’s rights. If we want to change the narrative, we need to change the narrator. This means children telling their own stories. Children enjoying their rights and envisioning a better future. The quest for rights and freedoms for all children is not the responsibility of children alone. We all need to accompany them on this journey. Policy makers and people in power need to listen, actively, and they must act, urgently. The last decades have brought many transformational shifts in child rights. The adoption of the Convention of the Rights of the Child – the most ratified international law convention in history – marked a crucial turning point. Since the Convention came into force, hundreds of millions of children have gained improved access to healthcare and education. They can more freely participate in discussions that affect their lives and their futures. This progress has been rapid, but it has not been universal. The rights enshrined in the Convention are far from the reality for every child. We know that children themselves are worried about the many challenges the world is facing – wars, climate change, poverty and the lingering impacts of COVID-19, including on education. Friends, Around the globe, children have been, and continue to be, powerful champions for change. They are leading the global fight on climate change. They are calling for action against racism, or violence against women and girls. They are demanding the rights of all people to love who they choose, no matter their gender. Their voices are not just contributing to policy, they are shaping it. Yet in many countries, children continue to be excluded from decisions that have an impact on their lives. Human rights law, particularly the Child Rights Convention, says that children must enjoy the right freely to express their views. But many child rights defenders face serious consequences when they try to do so. Their opinions may be disregarded or dismissed. Some face punishments, threats, violence, disappearances, and even execution. The Committee on the Rights of the Child has said that countries must ensure child human rights defenders have access to child-friendly complaint mechanisms, so they can tell people when there are problems. However, many countries do not have these mechanisms in place. And children face issues accessing police assistance, courts and other forms of justice often because not many lawyers are specialised in children’s rights. To achieve a world where the rights of child human rights defenders are truly respected, we must prioritise their protection. States need to play a crucial role, ensuring child rights defenders are safe and empowered. Friends, The UN Guidance Note on Child Rights Mainstreaming is being finalised and agreed to across UN agencies. This marks a significant milestone for the United Nations, and will help all parts of the UN to systematically prioritise child rights in their policies, strategies and approaches. A shared UN child rights agenda means keeping to our promise of upholding ‘all rights for all people,’ to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and, ultimately, to strengthening our accountability to children. I thank Child Rights Connect and your members for your powerful advocacy which was instrumental to this decision and process. This Guidance Note is just one step in a bigger process which will require wide, collective, and concrete action to implement its recommendations. To add to these efforts, my Office is also preparing a report on strengthening child rights mainstreaming, to be presented to the Human Rights Council early next year. Friends, As you know, this year we are celebrating 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a visionary document developed after the tragedy of two global wars. A document which gave us all hope that the world could recover, united with the desire for justice, peace, and human dignity. As a young child myself, I found deep inspiration in the promises the Universal Declaration laid out. My Office’s Human Rights 75 Initiative – which aims to reinvigorate the spirit of the Universal Declaration and apply it to the challenges we face today and will be facing tomorrow – has a special emphasis on engaging children and young people. We want to hear their vision for human rights today and for the future. To ensure their voices are heard, we have assembled a Youth Advisory Group comprising twelve exceptional young human rights activists. We are working with Child Rights Connect and partners to connect with child human rights defenders around the world through dialogues, a focus group discussion and a survey. And we are looking forward to welcoming child human rights defenders to take part in our high-level event here in Geneva in December. I will make sure that the voices of children and young people will be prominently reflected in my Office’s vision statement for human rights, a key outcome of our activities this year. Friends, We all know that children represent our future. But they also represent our here and now. Their rights matter – today. Children make up 30 percent of humanity. Ensuring each child has the best possible start in life and the opportunity to develop their potential is one of the best ways to secure human rights, social change and progress for all of society. To the children who challenge injustice, fight for the rights of others, raise their voices for those who cannot, and who hold governments to account – thank you for everything you do. We celebrate you today. I very much look forward to our conversation.