Human Rights Council

Topic area A: Child trafficking

A child’s life should be characterized by attending school, birthday parties and playing sports.  However, for over 250 million children, reality is different.  Especially in developing countries, young children are used to work in mines, textile fabrics and farms. They often have bad salaries or do not get paid at all.

Next to illegal child labor, each day, more children are trafficked into prostitution, child marriage and other slavery-like conditions. Some children are only kept for the sale of their organs, merely being the keepers of somebody else’s heart. Given up for adoption or even sold by their parents, these young children end up in the trafficking circuit.

Child trafficking currently is one of the fastest growing criminal industries. Although trafficking is often seen as a recurring problem in the developing countries, the final responsibility may not only lie within those countries. Sex tourism and the demands for child labor partially roots in the Western society. It is very well possible that you yourself attribute to the continuity of child trafficking, simply by buying a piece of clothing. In order to solve the problem of child trafficking, the circle of supply and demand needs to be broken.
 

Topic area B: Human rights violations in Palestinian refugee camps

‘The world is watching; the world is listening – watching as we assemble to speak about development and listening as we declare our good intentions. And as it does so, it will weigh us in the balance. We will be judged, not by people in high places but by those who live with the indignities of poverty and disease, the paralyzing effects of war and the misery of hopelessness and displacement.’ – Filippo Grandi –

It is by far the biggest displaced population in the world: over 6 million Palestinian refugees are living in exile. Two third of them trace their origins to the mass displacements in the 1948 exodus. During, or shortly after the conflict that resulted in the founding of the Israeli state, the Palestinians living in those areas were forced to abandon their lands. The Palestinian refugees are now spread across neighboring countries. For over one million Palestinian refugees, the refugee camp turned to become their permanent residence, as they are unable to return to their old homes. The living conditions inside these camps are abominable. Generally, these camps lack decent facilities as healthcare and education. The vulnerability of most refugees, even inside the ‘safe walls’ of their camps, causes a lot of stress. The hosting countries do not have the resources or the will to safeguard the camps. Military attacks on camps happen relatively often. These camps were founded in violent and conflicting areas to provide a safe haven for the Palestinian refugees, however, the promise of safety is not always realized.

In-committee lecture

The committee topics will be introduced by René Rouwette, who holds a PhD-position at Utrecht University and at the Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (SIM). In his interdisciplinary project, Rouwette focuses on the theme of EU cooperation at the UN-Human Rights Commission and at the Council. In 2009, Rouwette worked as a visiting professional at the Netherlands Permanent Mission in Geneva.