Guide to an effective human rights response to the HIV epidemic

Concluding observations of the
Committee on the Rights of the Child:
Uganda (CRC/C/15/Add 80) 1997
(excerpts)
State reporting is meant to be a continuous process.
It is recommended to states that they disseminate
and implement concluding observations. Concluding
observations are an important and often neglected
component of the reporting process. The implementation
of concluding observations demonstrates
30. The Committee further recommends that
all appropriate measures, including public
information campaigns, be undertaken
to prevent and combat all forms of discrimination
against girls, orphans, children with
disabilities, abandoned children, children
born out of wedlock, and children victims
of abuse and/or sexual and economic exploitation,
especially those living in rural
areas, with a view, inter alia, to facilitating
their access to basic services.
32. The Committee recommends that the State
party take all appropriate measures, including
through international co-operation, to
prevent and combat infant and child mortality
and malnutrition. Further, the Committee
suggests that the government strengthen
its information and prevention programmes
to combat HIV/AIDS, particularly
to prevent the transmission to children of
HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted
diseases (STD) and to eliminate discriminatory
attitudes towards children affected by
effective engagement with the UN treaty body
system and shows the state’s ongoing commitment
to the realisation of human rights. The implementation
of concluding observations can result in the
incorporation of human rights at the national level,
which can translate into protection and redress for
vulnerable individuals.
Individual complaints and HIV
As described previously, some of the UN treaty
bodies may receive complaints or communications
from individuals who believe that the state has
violated their rights. In respect to the ICCPR and
CEDAW, individuals may bring complaints against
their states only if the states have accepted the
optional protocols to the respective treaties.
The following table shows the countries in Eastern
and Southern Africa that have ratified the relevant
optional protocols that allow individuals in those
states to submit complaints:
or infected with HIV/AIDS. The Committee
further recommends that the State party
pursue and strengthen its family planning
and reproductive health educational programmes,
including for adolescents.
26 | Guide to an effective human rights response to the HIV epidemic