10 October marks the World Day Against the Death Penalty which this year focuses children of parents sentenced to death or executed with the title Children: The Unseen Victims of the Death Penalty.  The World Day will draw attention to the impact on children of parental death sentences and executions.

The Child Rights Connect Working Group on Children of Incarcerated Parents, which QUNO co-convenes, welcomes the UN Global Study on Children Deprived of their Liberty. We particularly welcome the Study’s detailed discussion on the rights of children living in prison with a parent, and the research which has been undertaken on this crucial subject.

Laurel Townhead, Human Rights and Refugees Representative for the Quaker United Nations Office and co-convenor of the Child Rights Connect Working Group on Children of Incarcerated Parents said:

QUNO, under the Friends World Committee for Consultation, is the only faith-based organization accredited as an observer to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which collates the most recent climate science findings to advise all countries. While government representatives cannot change the underlying scientific text in the reports, they can negotiate language in the Summary for Policy Makers (SPM), so long as the integrity of the findings is not affected.

In April, QUNO's Florence Foster was invited to speak during the first Intersessional seminar on the contribution of the Human Rights Council to the prevention of human rights violations (resolution 38/18). Florence noted that human rights violations are both the cause and effect of destructive conflict, and they therefore play a central role in early warning, prevention of destructive conflict, and in providing the basis for accountability through to rebuilding societies.