What we do and why we do it

Oliver Robertson looks at QUNO’s work with the children of prisoners worldwide

Avenue of Flags at the UN Building, Geneva | Photo: Munksynz/flickr CC

The breakthrough came on 1st October 2010. It happened late on Friday afternoon, tucked away in a statement about the following year’s programme of work. Only a couple of dozen people were sitting in the Committee Chamber to hear the news, and few of those appreciated the effort that had gone into getting this far. As in a Quaker Meeting, cheering wasn’t permitted, but we sat there with big grins on our faces as the chair of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child read out the subject of the following year’s Day of General Discussion. At the third time of asking, a body of the United Nations had finally agreed to discuss, substantively, the issue of children of prisoners.

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