Queen Mathilde in New York: July 11-12

  July 12, 2016 at 12:33 pm by

Her Majesty Queen Mathilde was on a two-day working visit to New York on July 11-12 accompanied by the Belgian Foreign Minister, Didier Reynders.

On Monday July 11, as Honorary Chair of Belgium UNICEF, the Queen attended the conference titled “Rehabilitation and Reintegration of Children Affected by Armed Conflict”. The meeting, held at the headquarter of the United Nations, was organized by Belgium, UNICEF and the United Nations.

In her speech Queen Mathilde stressed the importance of protection for the children who live in conflict zones. The Queen also added that during various trips made by her in critical areas, she witnessed the progress made to achieve the protection of the children. Even though Queen Mathilde stated that “there are still many violent conflicts around the world, as well as several so-called ‘forgotten emergencies’.” Queen Mathilde expressed how important is for the children affected by armed conflicts to be reintegrated.

Later the Queen had a meeting with Leila Zerrougui, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Children and Armed Conflict. In the evening, along with the Foreign Minister, the Queen attended at the launch of the Belgian campaign for a non-permanent seat in the United Nations Security Council for the period 2019-2020. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and his wife were present as well.

Today, Tuesday July 12, second and last day of the visit, Queen Mathilde participated in a debate as a member of the Advocacy Group for Sustainable Development SDG. The debate was titled “Human Rights at the Heart of the Global Agenda”, it was organized by the President of the General Assembly, Mogens Lykketoft and it was held at the UN headquarters at the presence of Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Human rights are one of the objective of the development agenda 2030, a program adopted by the Advocacy Group for Sustainable Development SDG. In her speech the Queen stated the importance of development to achieve human rights and she also expressed three important principles: the fight against discrimination and against inequality, the good governance and the harmony between the many actors involved.

During the day Queen Mathilde had various meeting: she met Mogens Lykketoft, President of the General Assembly; Marta Santos Pais, the Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Violence against Children; the UNICEF Executive director Anthony Lake and the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

Filed under The Netherlands
Tagged , , , , , , , .

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.