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Recommendation 2023 (2013) Final version
Children’s right to physical integrity
1. The Parliamentary Assembly, referring
to its Resolution 1952
(2013) on children’s right to physical integrity, welcomes
the ambitious work undertaken by the Council of Europe in favour
of children’s human rights, which has always followed a comprehensive
approach including child protection, the promotion of children’s
development and child participation as the main pillars of effective
child rights strategies.
2. The Assembly welcomes, in particular, the fact that the Council
of Europe’s Strategy for the Rights of the Child already focuses
on eliminating all forms of violence against children among its
strategic objectives, and strongly encourages the Committee of Ministers
to allow this work to continue along the same lines beyond 2015.
3. The Assembly points out, however, that a certain category
of human rights violations against children is not yet explicitly
covered by any international or European policy or legal instrument:
the medically unjustified violations of children’s physical integrity
as specified in Assembly Resolution
1952 (2013).
4. With the purpose of reinforcing the protection of children’s
rights and well-being at the European level, the Assembly invites
the Committee of Ministers to:
4.1. take
fully into account the issue of children’s right to physical integrity
when preparing and adopting its new strategy for the rights of the
child as of 2015, in particular as regards the fight against all
forms of violence against children and the promotion of child participation
in decisions concerning them;
4.2. consider the explicit inclusion of children's right to
physical integrity, as well as their right to participate in any
decision concerning them, into relevant Council of Europe standards
and, to this end, to examine in a comprehensive manner in which
Council of Europe instruments such rights should be included.