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Children at the forum: Self-representation or represented?
On day 3 of the Forum, participants discussed how children should be involved in their work around the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child.
Nikiwe Kuanda from Save the Children presented the legal basis for children's participation set out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC), among other instruments.
She asked delegates to think about what participation means, how the forum can promote participation, how can children be given a space to hold the forum accountable and how will children be informed about decisions of the forum.
Recommendations from participants:
- To establish guidelines on how children can participate
- To develop guidelines on how the Committee can better involve children
- To develop a questionnaire for children mirroring the CSO questionnaire
- To involve children in alternative report process as well as the pre-sessions.
Other suggestions included: advocating for the African Committee to have a slot to hear children at each session on a regional basis; providing flip video cameras for children to countries in the region for children to present their views to the Committee session; to invite children from Ethiopia then rotate the geographical location of meeting; start by making the CRC and the ACRWC known at the local level.
Other comments:
How can children's expectations be managed after the session has finished? Many children go back from other international events feeling disappointed and that nothing will change. What about getting them involved in things at national level which can really change things.
Culture can change: In the UK, children are gradually getting involved in decision-making, for example, in Wales children now help to select the children's ombudsperson.
Bringing children to the forum is expensive; money can be used elsewhere.
African societies have always had ways of getting children involved; not a new concept – why not use some of these traditional ways?
Latin American NGOs have interesting examples of child participation at all levels and could be a useful source of information.
The NGO Group revealed that they are planning to develop guidelines for children's participation in the Committee's work.
Children's views are not treated as useful, taught to listen. Will not express themselves surrounded by adults. How representative would the forum be?
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The forum re-convened to discuss how its future governance structure, emphasising in particular the importance of national NGOs playing a bigger role.
Participants heard about the NGO Group's model.
Chikezie Anyanwu from Save the Children presented a draft governance structure based on the ideas of organisations involved with the forum.
Read this here.
More information will be available in the forum's outcome document.
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Recommendations
The Forum concluded with the adoption of a set of recommendations to the African Committee. The recommendations concern the Committee's general functions, communications procedure, advocacy around the Day of the African Child, the Year of Peace and Security in Africa and the 16th Session of the African Union Heads of State and Government Meeting: Maternal, Infant and Child Health and Development in Africa.
Read the recommendations in English and French