Children – Third Cttee debate – Summary record (excerpts)

Third Committee

Summary record of the 19th meeting

Held at Headquarters, New York, on Monday, 14 October 2002, at 3 p.m. 

 Chairman:   Mr. Wenaweser  …………………………………… (Liechtenstein)

Contents

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Agenda item 43: Follow-up to the outcome of the special session on children* (continued)

Agenda item 105: Promotion and protection of the rights of children* ( continued)

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*Items which the Committee has decided to consider together.

The meeting was called to order at 3.10 p.m.

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Agenda item 43: Follow-up to the outcome of the special session on children (continued) (A/57/350)

Agenda item 105: Promotion and protection of the rights of children ( continued) (A/57/41 and Corr.1, 295, 402)

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25.   Mr. Youssef (Libyan Arab Jamahiriya) said that while the Committee was discussing children, Palestinian children were being killed by the Israeli army. War crimes and crimes against humanity were being committed daily on Palestinian land and no one had been able to stop the aggressor. …

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43.   Mr. Ingólfsson (Iceland) …

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44.   Several aspects of the rights of children deserved special attention, such as the empowerment of the girl child through education and reproductive health care and the protection of children affected by armed conflict. His delegation was particularly concerned about the plight of children in the occupied Palestinian territories. …

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74.   Mr. Tamir (Israel), speaking in exercise of the right of reply, said that certain delegations in their statements had deliberately accused his country of all the evils inflicted on their children. In response, he maintained that using children as a tool for political gain and to create favourable public relations was unforgivable. The practice of brainwashing children, and teaching them to blow themselves up along with innocent bystanders, then blaming their actions on “root causes” must be repudiated in the strongest possible terms. Blame should be placed squarely on those who prepared them for such acts: the Palestinian Authority and its groups. Delegations which blamed “root causes” were encouraging suicide bombings, a practice which must be eradicated. Israeli children too were being systematically targeted on a daily basis. If the world community ignored those killings and condoned that practice in the Middle East, nothing could prevent it from spreading to other regions.

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The meeting rose at 6.10 p.m.

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