eng - World Organisation Against Torture

Human Rights (PCHR) in 1997, withthe mandate to independently promoteand monitor the implementation of humanrights and notes that some otherbodies are also given a monitoring roleregarding the implementation of children’srights. The Committee acknowledgesPCHR’s activities regardingchildren’s rights, however is concernedat its limited mandate and resources.13. The Committee recommends to theState party, with reference to theCommittee’s general comment No. 2(2002) on the role of independent nationalhuman rights institutions in thepromotion and protection of the rights ofthe child, that it consider broadening themandate of PCHR regarding the monitoringof children’s rights and providingPCHR with adequate resources in orderto strengthen the investigation of individualcomplaints filed by children in achildsensitive manner.Allocation of resources14. The Committee notes the slight increasein budgetary allocations for children’ssocial services, the State party’s effortsto implement the 20/20 initiative forbudgeting and the priority given to lowincomefamilies and combatingpoverty, for example through the creationof a Poverty Alleviation Fund. TheCommittee also notes with deep concernthat the State party’s debt servicing takesup more than 30 per cent of its nationalbudget and that insufficient attention hasbeen paid to sufficient budgetary allocationsfor children and to article 4 ofthe Convention regarding budgetary allocationsto the implementation of theeconomic, social and cultural rights ofchildren to the maximum extent of availableresources.15. The Committee recommends that theState party strengthen its efforts to reduceits level of debt servicing in orderto, inter alia, allow an increase of budgetaryallocations to the realization ofchildren’s rights and, in particular, theimplementation of the economic, socialand cultural rights of children. In orderto be able to evaluate the impact of expenditureson children, the Committeerecommends that the State party establisha systematic assessment of the impactof budgetary allocations on theimplementation of children’s rights and61