Remarks by H.E. Ambassador Irina Schoulgin-Nyoni at Side Event during the 72nd Regular Session of the UN General Assembly: "Celebrating Childhood, a Journey to End Violence against Children". United Nations, 10 October 2017, New York.
Mr/Madam Moderator,
I’m pleased that Sweden is co-sponsoring this important event. I welcome the launch of the publication where also Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden has written one of the forewords. Only a week ago she was here in New York, where she gave a keynote speech at the high-level meeting on ‘Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals for Children’.
During her speech, Her Majesty said that the 2030 Agenda represented an unprecedented opportunity to protect and improve the lives of children: one that must be seized. This is a point that I have heard so clearly here today.
Sweden’s commitment to realizing the rights of every child is reflected in the Swedish government’s priorities, including for Sweden to be one of the very best countries in the world for children to grow up in. But we also have challenges and at the heart of addressing these must be ensuring that children grow up free from fear, violence and abuse.
There are a number of ways in which the Swedish government is working to make this ambition a reality.
Firstly, Sweden has a long-standing policy of making the home and the community a safe space for children. In 1979, Sweden was the first country to ban corporal punishment of children.
And, in 2016, a ten-year strategy to combat men’s violence against women was adopted with a strong focus on the protection of, and support to, children who have witnessed or been subjected to violence. More broadly, we have also put in place an action plan to protect children from trafficking in persons, exploitation and sexual abuse.
And we will continue to evolve and improve our policy environment for the protection of children, including through our feminist foreign policy. In an extremely significant move, the Swedish government, earlier this year, proposed that the Convention on the Rights of the Child be fully incorporated into Swedish law; thereby making it central to the application of all legislation. We hope this can happen by 2020.
Secondly,we are also working with our international partners. Sweden is an active member of the Global Partnership to End Violence against Children. We will host the first ‘Solutions Summit’ of the Partnership next year in Stockholm. The Summit aims to strengthen and increase understanding of the rights of the child, and to catalyse action for solutions to protect children through partnerships. This is central to the 2030 Agenda. Working together we can make a real difference.
Finally, I also want to highlight the joint EU-GRULAC resolution on the rights of the child in the Third Committee, which, this year, will focus on violence against children. The resolution will address many issues we’ve discussed today. I hope that it can enjoy broad support and be adopted by consensus. Thank you.