The UN Secretary General warned one year ago that Gaza was becoming a “graveyard for children”. Since then, the UN has reported more than 14,500 Palestinian children have been killed and many more are missing. Since the war in Gaza began, 85% percent of schools have been destroyed or damaged, children suffer from hunger, are lacking medical care and experiencing mental health trauma.
The Australian Human Rights Institute hosted a conversation with the Chairperson of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, Professor Ann Skelton, to discuss the legal obligations to protect the rights of Palestinian children and the recommendations of the UN Committee to address this. Professor Skelton was joined in conversation by Dr Noam Peleg, Senior Lecturer and Director – Equity, Diversity and Inclusion at the Faculty of Law & Justice at UNSW, and an Associate of the Australian Human Rights Institute.
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Professor Ann Skelton is a professor of law at the University of Pretoria, South Africa, where she is UNESCO Chair in Education Law in Africa. She also holds the Chair in Children's Rights in a Sustainable World and the Programme Director of the Master of Laws: Advanced Studies in International Children’s Rights at Leiden University (the Netherlands). Professor Skelton has been chairperson of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child since May 2023