A/70/213 can be addressed by the same or similar interventions and can be mainstreamed into existing health and other relevant policies and programmes. 21 32. While welcoming this important paradigm shift towards embracing the right to healthy development, the Special Rapporteur is concerned that in the draft sustainable development goals, and in other documents, there is a tendency to address human rights, including the human rights of children, selectively. For example, while welcoming the proposed goal 5.2 to “eliminate violence against all women and girls in the public and private spheres”, 22 he wishes to highlight that no form of violence against children, including boys, should be accepted. 33. Moreover, States should mobilize more political will and resources and facilitate the meaningful involvement of all relevant stakeholders, in particular civil society actors, in the realization of goals and targets of the sustainable development goals related to early childhood. C. Right to health obligations to promote early childhood development 34. General comment No. 7 (2005) on implementing child rights in early childhood and general comment No. 15 (2013) on the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health of the Committee on the Rights of the Child embrace a holistic approach to health, survival and development. Building on relevant treaty provisions and on evidence from the public health and scientific communities, the following sections of the report set out a right to health approach to early childhood development. Young children as rights holders 35. Infants and young children are holders of all rights enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child as well as other international human rights treaties. The Convention affords special protection for early childhood in recognition of the important and particular challenges facing this age group and the progressive exercise of their rights, in accordance with their evolving capacities. 36. In this regard, the rights of the newborn, as a rights holder, need to be addressed. Newborn children are too often not considered as deserving the status of autonomous individuals and rights holders and therefore not deserving respect and dignity. Young children, from the first days of their lives, are not only expo sed to the environment in which they live but are actively shaping their surroundings by means of their presence and different forms of communication. In paragraph 10 of the recommendations adopted on its day of general discussion on implementing child rights in early childhood, held in September 2004, 23 the Committee on the Rights of the Child underlined that the concept of the child as rights holder is “anchored in the child’s daily life from the earliest stage” (para. 10). __________________ 21 22 23 15-12535 P. Engle and others, “Strategies for reducing inequalities and improving developmental outcomes for young children in low-income and middle-income countries”, Lancet, vol. 378, No. 9799 (23 September 2011), pp. 1339-1353. See https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/content/documents/7261Post -2015%20Summit%20%202%20June%202015.pdf. Available from www.ohchr.org/Documents/HRBodies/CRC/Discussions/Recommendations/ Recommendations2004.pdf. 9/25

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