• Women and Child Affairs Ministry reviewing HRCSL recommendation
• Protocol would allow children to seek UN review after exhausting local legal remedies

The Ministry of Women and Child Affairs is expected to make a favourable decision in the coming week on whether Sri Lanka will ratify the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on a communications procedure, following a recommendation from the Human Rights Commission of Sri Lanka (HRCSL) to strengthen the country’s child protection framework, it is learnt.

Ministry of Women and Child Affairs Secretary Tharangani Wickremasinghe yesterday (14) confirmed that the ministry was reviewing the recommendation at present and viewed the proposal positively, although noting that further internal discussions would be required before a final decision was made.

“We have to decide, but before that we need to hold discussions on our strategy moving forward. We are actually very positive about it,” Wickremasinghe said.

“We hope to make this decision by this week,” she added.

The HRCSL submitted its recommendation to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Women and Child Affairs on 5 March. In its communication, the commission said that ratifying the protocol would be consistent with its statutory mandate to advise the Government on the promotion and protection of human rights.

The commission also stated that ratification would enhance access to justice for children in Sri Lanka and strengthen the country’s compliance with international human rights obligations. It therefore encouraged the Ministry of Women and Child Affairs to take the necessary steps to support and facilitate the ratification process.

The protocol, commonly referred to as CRC-OP3, is an international human rights instrument adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in 2011 and brought into force in 2014. It establishes a formal mechanism allowing children, or their representatives, to submit complaints to the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) when their rights are violated and domestic legal remedies have been exhausted.

Under this procedure, children can seek international review of alleged rights violations if national institutions fail to provide an effective remedy. Supporters of the protocol say it strengthens accountability and ensures that the rights guaranteed under the UNCRC are fully enforceable. 

Ratifying international protocols often requires corresponding domestic legislation to ensure that their provisions can be implemented within national law. However, Wickremasinghe explained that the ministry was examining whether certain aspects of the protocol could be implemented using existing legal frameworks.

“We have to examine how far the existing laws allow us to implement some of the provisions. That is why we need to have discussions before ratifying it,” she explained.

If Sri Lanka ratifies CRC-OP3, the country would join a growing number of nations that allow children to submit complaints through an international mechanism once domestic legal avenues have been exhausted. The procedure is widely viewed as a last-resort safeguard designed to ensure that the rights guaranteed under the UNCRC remain accessible and enforceable.

– By Faizer Shaheid