Geneva: Ambassador Obaid Salem Al Za’abi, Permanent Representative of the UAE to the United Nations (UN) and other International Organisations in Geneva, delivered UAE’s speech on Tuesday before the Human Rights Council Universal Periodic Review (UPR) as part of the review of Algeria’s national report.
Algeria is one of the 14 states to be reviewed by the UPR Working Group during its session taking place from May 1 to 12, which also marks the commencement of the third UPR cycle.
Al Za’abi hailed the significant steps taken by Algeria in recent years, through the adoption of a range of comprehensive and transparent reforms aimed at promoting the rule of law, good governance, human rights and human development.
He highlighted the establishment of the Office of the National Child Protection Ombudsman, as provided for in Algeria’s Act No. 15-12 of the year 2015, concerning coordinating all matters relating to children and adolescents, as part of the country’s reform efforts. According to the national report, the National Ombudsman is tasked with promoting children’s rights and setting up and regularly evaluating national and local programmes for the protection and promotion of the rights of the child.
The UAE presented three recommendations to encourage these efforts further and see the implementation of procedures, during the working group’s review of the national report. The first recommendation calls for enlarging the scope of children’s protection from crimes committed through the internet, the second for continuously updating the juvenile judicial system by adopting more measures that comply with the nature and needs of children, and the third calls to take necessary measures to combat school dropout rates.
Ramtane Lamamra, Algeria’s Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, expressed her appreciation of the speech and remarks delivered by Al Za’abi on the review of the Algerian national report.