[Please note that this podcast was recorded before May 2023, when Ms Mikiko Otani was still serving as the Chairperson of the Committee]

Ms. Mikiko Otani is a member of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child and served as the Chairperson of the Committee until May 2023. Ms. Otani is a practicing lawyer from Japan who specializes in family law. She has an advanced academic background and extensive experience of NGO activities in the field of international human rights law. Her focus areas include migrant women and children, human trafficking, international child abduction, remedies for victims of human rights violations, access to justice and human rights education. Ms. Otani played an instrumental role in Japan’s contracting the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction in 2014. As a female leader representing civil society in Japan, Ms. Otani was an Alternate Representative of the Delegation of Japan to the 60th and the 61st UN General Assembly (Third Committee) (2005-2006) and an Advisor (NGO Representative) of the Delegation of Japan to the 53rd UN Commission on the Status of Women (2009). Ms. Otani has been actively involved with NGOs and professional organizations at the regional and the international levels, having served as a Regional Council member of the Asia-Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (2005-2014) and as Co-Chair of the Women Lawyers’ Interest Group of the International Bar Association (2013-2014).  Ms. Otani has been actively involved in the reporting process for Japan under the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women representing NGOs. Ms. Otani has frequently been invited to speak on children’s rights issues at regional and international conferences and to provide training on international human rights law, in particular, women’s rights and children’s rights, at professional training seminars for lawyers in various countries. She has also been invited to teach international human rights law at law schools in Japan and the USA.

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