United Nations: greater child participation is key to shaping a protective environment for all children / Every child has the right to be seen and heard – loudly and clearly – in decisions that affect their and their families’ wellbeing

 

KAMPALA, Uganda, June 16, 2008/African Press Organization (APO)/ — On the occasion of the Day of the African Child, the United Nations in Uganda encourages the Government and people of Uganda to promote child participation as a means of shaping a protective environment for the children of today and tomorrow.

The 2008 theme for the Day of the African Child, Child Participation, is particularly apt here in

Uganda where – for the first time in a generation – children born in the north are increasingly able to

move out from the shadow of conflict and into the light of a day when every child has access to the

full range of services and rights: access to good health care, a decent education, and being brought

up with love and respect.

As the Universal Declaration of Human Rights – the sixtieth anniversary of which we celebrate this

year – recognizes, all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and in rights. Yet, at this

moment across Uganda, there are tens – indeed hundreds – of thousands of children who are unable

to fully claim and enjoy their right to participation due to poverty, inequality, violence and social and

political exclusion.

Through the use of child rights clubs, children’s parliaments, interactive media and other initiatives,

more efforts are needed to meaningfully enlist and reflect the opinions of children in decision-making

at all levels and to enable children to access appropriate and useful information. The focus must be

on all children, including children from poor families, children living with disabilities and children who

are orphaned and vulnerable.

Child and youth participation is one of the five indispensable commitments and obligations of the

African Union’s “Call for Accelerated Action” towards implementing the Plan of Action for Africa Fit

for Children (2008-2012). We, the United Nations, reaffirm our commitment to supporting the

Government of Uganda to meet this obligation as an African Union member state.

Furthermore, we reaffirm our commitment to assist Uganda to fulfil its obligations as a signatory to the

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, the first legally-binding international instrument

to incorporate the full range of civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights, including the

universal right of children to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

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About the Day of the African Child:

Initiated by the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in 1991, the Day of the African Child is celebrated

on 16 June in recognition of 1976 tragedy in which thousands of black school children in Soweto,

South Africa, took to the streets to protest the inferior quality of their education and to demand their

right to be taught in their own language. Hundreds of young boys and girls were shot. In the two

weeks of protest that followed, more than 100 people were killed and more than 1,000 were injured.

 

SOURCE : UNITED NATIONS