China: UN child rights experts question national security and ethnic unity laws, restrictions on fundamental freedoms – International Service for Human Rights

China: UN child rights experts question national security and ethnic unity laws, restrictions on fundamental freedoms  International Service for Human Rights

The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has published its List of Issues, adopted on 2 October 2026, in relation to China’s combined fifth and sixth… Ahead of China’s first UN child rights review since 2013, UN committee raises questions about Hong Kong's national security laws and China's Ethnic Unity Law, alongside longstanding concerns over children’s fundamental freedoms. The UN Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) has published its List of Issues, adopted on 2 October 2026, in relation to China’s combined fifth and sixth periodic reports under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. The List of Issues contains 28 numbered paragraphs, setting out detailed questions and requests for information on a broad range of children’s rights concerns across mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao.

It marks the first step in the process of China’s first review by the Committee since 2013, expected to take place next year at the earliest, providing an opportunity to assess progress in implementing the Committee’s 2013 recommendations and examine new human rights concerns that have emerged over the past 13 years. The latest questions revisit several concerns raised in the Committee’s 2013 assessment and recommendations (known as ‘concluding observations’), including discrimination against Tibetan and Uyghur children, restrictions on their religious and linguistic rights, barriers to education, family