YEMEN: Ministers discuss changes to children's laws

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[SANA’A, 3 December 2007] – Government Ministers in Yemen met with NGOs in November to discuss changes to national laws on children’s issues, including the rights of children with disabilities. The laws under discussion included the Child Rights Law, Juvenile Act, Criminal Law, and Family Affairs Law.

The workshop, which was convened by the Higher Council for Motherhood and Childhood (HCMC) – the main government ministry dealing with child rights, was held with three parliamentary committees: Human Rights and General Freedoms, Legal and Constitutional Affairs, and the Islamic Sharia Committee.

The workshop followed up a regional consultation on children and the new UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities held in Sana’a in October which representatives from the HCMC attended and where they agreed to change their national strategy on the rights of children with disabilities. Read more about the consultation here.

Other participants at the meeting included representatives from Save the Children Sweden and other NGOs, UNICEF, academics and other governmental institutions. This was also the first time that the HCMC, which translated all meeting documents into Braille, had invited the Union of the Disabled to join a discussion on children’s issues.

The aim of the October regional consultation for the Middle East and North Africa, which was jointly organised by Save the Children, the Arab Human Rights Foundation and the Yemeni Disability Fund for Care and Rehabilitation, was to look at how the new Convention can be used to promote and strengthen the rights of children with disabilities. The consultation will contribute to an Implementation Handbook which will be published by Save the Children in December 2008.

Information about a Yemeni children’s network which was set up following the regional consultation will soon be available.

For more information, contact:
Waleed Mohammed Elbashir
Country Manager
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +967 (01) 417 899

or

Aisha Saeed
Senior Programme Officer
Email: [email protected]
Tel: +967 (01) 417 899

Further information

Issues: 
Children with disabilities
Tags: 
x Disability News

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