First Malaysian to join the United Nations' Committee of the Rights of the Child

Lawyer Yasmeen Muhammad Shariff, an executive council member of the Malaysian Council for Child Welfare, becomes the first Malaysian to be elected to the United Nations' Committee of the Rights of the Child (CRC) Tuesday. Yasmeen, garnered an astounding 150 votes from 189 State Parties present at the meeting, and taking part in the voting. Besides Malaysia, candidates from Austria, Bahrain, Brazil, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Italy, Russia and Slovakia were also elected to the committee, which is a body of independent experts that monitors implementation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child by its State Parties. CRC also monitors implementation of two Optional Protocols to the Convention - on Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict and on Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography. Yasmeen, who has been involved in improving the juvenile justice system by introducing alternatives to custody, conducting legal aid clinics for children in conflict with the law at prisons and remand centres, received a Justice Maker Award from the International Bridges to Justice (IBJ), Geneva, Switzerland in 2010 for her works in bringing reform in the area of Juvenile Justice System in Malaysia. The lawyer who hails from Kuala Lumpur and has a masters degree in Comparative Law from International Islamic University and Bachelor of Law from United Kingdom's University of Buckingham, has a vast experience in Syariah and Civil law. Yasmeen who is also a trained and certified full-fledged family mediator from the United States University of Florida, has been appointed by the Women, Family and Community Development Ministry as a member of the National Advisory of Consultative Council on Children, National Coordination Council for The Protection of Children since 2006, National Women's Advisory Council (2001- 2013) and Special Committee on Child Friendly Place of Detention (2010-2012).