Europe EC “Agenda for the Rights of the Child” falls short of expectations

Project : TDHIF in Europe 13 Apr 2011 | child rights

Brussels, Belgium, February 15, 2011: “Children’s rights are fundamental rights. The EU and its 27 Member States need to make sure they are protected and that the best interests of the child are our guiding principles” said Vice-President Viviane Reding, the EU’s Justice Commissioner on 15. February 2011, on the occasion of the adoption of the Commission’s long-awaiting “Agenda for the Rights of the Child”.

The Agenda aims at “reinforcing the rights of the child by putting the principles of the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights into practice”. The agenda lists 11 actions that the Commission will take over the next years to protect children’s rights, including promoting child-friendly justice, better informing children about their rights, and making the internet safer for kids, among others.

“The Agenda has important concrete actions, but we would have expected a real comprehensive strategy on the rights of the child, as announced by the same European Commission five years ago”, said Salvatore Parata, Head of European Office Terre des hommes International Federation. The Agenda seems to fall short of the EC commitment “to develop a comprehensive strategy to ensure that the European Union contributes to promoting and safeguarding children’s rights in all its internal and external actions”, as set out in the Commission’s Communication entitled Towards an EU strategy on the Rights of the Child in 2006, five years ago.

Children’s rights form part of the fundamental rights that the EU is committed to respect under the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. The Treaty of Lisbon also requires the EU to promote the protection of the rights of the child. In addition, all 27 EU countries have ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Europe 2020 Strategy sets out a vision for the 21st century of a Europe where the children of today will have a better education, access to the services and to the resources they need to grow up and, one day, lead Europe into the 22nd century.

As an NGO that fully integrates its field work to advocacy at international level, Terre des Hommes will continue to channel analyses, expertise and recommendations to the EU institutions based on its field project work. Strategically, Terre des hommes International Federation is using networking to run its advocacy work, being a member of various NGO networks that represent both the development cooperation sector as the human rights and child rights sector at EU level: Concord, the European NGO Confederation for Relief and Development; HRDN, the Human Rights & Democracy Network, a coalition of Human Rights NGOs and CRAG, the Child Rights Action Group. The overall objective of the advocacy work of Terre des Hommes International Federation is influencing the EU policy on child rights both internal and externally.

For more information, please contact:

Salvatore Parata at brussels@iftdh.org or 0032 2 8930953
Giang Cao at tdh-europe@iftdh.org or 0032 2 8930953

TDHIF- Terre des Hommes International Federation
Rue d’Edimbourg, 26 – 1050 Brussels