PRESS is a youth organisation for people
between 13 and 25 years of age. It works for
the fulfilment of the UN CRC on a local,
national and international level. It makes
changes through advocacy and action. Its
focus areas are refugee children and the
impact of globalisation on children.

Children’s rights are broken every day – both in Norway and in the rest of the world.

PRESS - Save The Children Youth Norway believes that the world’s problems are not made by themselves, we believe they are a result of human actions. The only ones who can assure that injustice doesn’t take place are the human beings themselves. PRESS’ vision is a world where the rights of the child are realized and abided, as these are formulated in the UN convention.
 

Refugee children

For many years, PRESS has been playing an important role in the work for refugee children’s rights in Norway, and this is still one of our main thematic areas. We are fighting hard to get all unaccompanied minor asylum seekers under the protection of the Norwegian child welfare authorities. Unaccompanied minor asylum seekers are children under 18 years of age, who come to Norway without their parents or others with parental responsibility.
 
Every year many refugee children disappear from Norwegian asylum centres. Little is done to locate these children, and nobody knows what happens to them or where they end up. PRESS works to put an end to this systematic discrimination of refugee children, which we see in Norway today.
 

International trade

World Trade Organisation (WTO) is an international organisation where international agreements that regulate the world’s trade system are made. These agreements do not only include regular commodities, but also basic human rights such as education, water supplies and health services. Many of  these negotiations take place behind closed doors, which leads to less developed countries loss of the possibility to influence world trade agreements.
 
PRESS will not accept that economic interests of developed countries is placed above the rights of the child in any trade agreements. Therefore, PRESS fights against a privatization of basic services as health, water supply and education, and towards a democratic international trade system.
 
Arms trade
Every year there is produced enough ammunition to kill all the people in the world – twice. The weapon industry is the world’s largest industry without comparison. Every year 900 million US Dollars are spent on military activities, and at the same time there is little control, and frequent corruption within this industry profiting on war and killing.
Norway is number eleven on the list of the largest exporters of weapon in the world, and the country that exports the most weapon per capita.
 
Nobody knows in which hands Norwegian weapons end up. PRESS tries to make Norwegian citizens aware of this problem and influences the Norwegian government to join into the Arms Trade Treaty, an international, legally binding agreement on control of arms trade.
 

Other issues

In addition to International trade, refugee children and arms trade, PRESS also work with other issues such as the rights of disabled children in Norway, local social forums and activities for children in asylum centres. We also have an exchange program with the Indian organisation Namma Sabha, an organisation made by former child labours.
 
PRESS has more than 1000 members and 20 local groups spread throughout the country. Every year we arrange seminars, conferances and a summercamp to join our local groups together and to keep our members updated on our main political workareas.