January 25, 2020
Today, with around 250 million children living in areas affected by armed conflicts, protecting children from violence poses a major challenge in international child law and its implementation.
Children also enjoy certain rights since birth. To draft a strategy and tasks to provide protection to children from physical and mental violence and from armed conflicts, we need to carry out a survey and research the on-ground situation regarding child rights abuses, by region and age.
Only with a strategy and tasks decided on the basis of the results of the survey can we take a pragmatic approach in drawing region-wise child protection measures.
Now is the time for the ministries concerned to cooperate in educating people about child rights to ensure that violations are not tolerated. We are confident that we can achieve success in this drive with the participation of the people.
In implementing our new Child Rights Law, the role of parents, family members, and neighbors would be crucial.
At present, Myanmar is implementing the Early Childhood Intervention (ECI) programme to monitor and provide care to children, depending on their age. To be able to carry out the tasks effectively, we need to find ways to incorporate health, education, justice, legal affairs, and local authorities, which play a major role in the program, and adopt the best practices from other countries.
We have five tasks to perform in relation with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. They are: enacting a suitable law in accordance with the convention, designing a national mechanism to implement the tenets of the convention, ensuring cooperation between the relevant ministries and domestic and foreign NGOs and CSOs, monitoring and evaluating the implementation of child rights, and submitting reports.
Meanwhile, the country needs cooperation from international organizations and countries in rehabilitating children found breaking the law and using drugs.
Myanmar is endeavoring to provide equal rights of all children and ensuring no one is left behind. There are about 17 million children across the nation who will be leading the future one day.
Only by protecting our children from grave violations during this current period of democratic transition can we ensure a bright future for our country.
GNLM
