ECPAT-USA, working with partners, has just completed “The NGO Alternative Report to UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) about the U.S. Government’s Implementation of the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography.” The report was coordinated by ECPAT-USA and authored by NGOs around the country. We are asking for NGOs throughout the U.S. to sign on in support of the report by February 29.
Though the U.S. has not yet ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, it did ratify the two Optional Protocols. The UNCRC has created a procedure that allows NGOs to offer additional information for the Committee to use when it reviews the U.S. government’s report in 2012. We submitted our first Alternative Report in 2007, which the UNCRC followed closely in its questioning of the U.S. government and in its recommendations. In 2010 the U.S. submitted its second report to the UNCRC informing the Committee about how it had implemented the Optional Protocol. And this is the second NGO report.
The more organizations supporting the Alternative Report, the more weight it will carry with the UN Committee. If you would like your organization to be listed as a submitting organization, please send us an email at ecpat@ecpatusa.org and let us know the exact name of your organization as it should be listed.
It is always a timely moment for organizations to take a stand on child trafficking, but even more so now because the latest revisions of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act have been stalled in Congress. We urge you to demonstrate your support for a strengthened government response.