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New treaty enables children to lodge complaints with UN about rights violations

A new treaty that allows children to complain directly to the United Nations about alleged violations of their rights has come into force.

The treaty, titled the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a Communications Procedure, will enable children and their representatives to submit complaints to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child about specific violations of their rights under the Convention and its other two Optional Protocols.

Children will be able to complain if their government has ratified the Optional Protocol on a Communications Procedure, and if they have exhausted all legal avenues in their own country.

The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history. Only Somalia and the United States have not yet ratified it.

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