NEW YORK (Pacnews) — Another Pacific leader has added his voice to calls by a number of Pacific countries at the United Nations that the Pacific should be recognized as a distinct region under the United Nations Charter.
Kiribati President Tebutoro Tito’s plea comes after Pacific island delegates to the Special Session on Children were not equally recognized with children from Asian countries.
The Pacific children’s delegates were asked to leave the main Asia Pacific table to make way for delegates from Asia. The Pacific is grouped under the Asian region in the U.N. charter.
Tito said, “Creating a distinct group for the Pacific under the Charter of the United Nations will enable Pacific states to contribute a unique Pacific strand to the global fabric of ideas and understanding.”
He added, “The U.N. needs to put in place a more effective representation of the small and developing countries in the global policy making.”
The Pacific has been lobbying hard for a separate grouping at the United Nations. The group is to include all Oceania countries, including Australia and New Zealand.
Tito and other Pacific leaders have advocated the establishment of the group because they could use it as a negotiating bloc for issues that are unique to their vulnerable societies.
The Kiribati leader also took the opportunity to tell world leaders that his small island nation maintains a “moderate and more cautious” approach to some of the obligations spelt out under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
“These are the ones that we think would undermine important cultural values, particularly with regards to the rights of the child,” he said.
“Kiribati is a nation where community where community roots and tradition still run strong. It is a country, where children grow up in an environment of love, and where the values of respect, responsibility, caring for and sharing with others, are developed in children from a very young age,” he added.
“Parental control and guidance, and disciplining a child, is very much an integral part of raising our children,” Tito said.
Kiribati has signed and ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
