Response to Review of
El derecho a la participación infantil de niñas, niños y adolescentes en situación de riesgo: menores no acompañados, niños y niñas afectados por conflictos armados y trabajadores infantiles
[The Participation Rights of Children and Adolescents at Risk: Unaccompanied Minors, Children Affected by Armed Conflicts and Child Workers]
Raquel González Juárez
Save the Children Spain
Citation: González Juárez, Raquel. (2007). "Response to Review of
El derecho a la participación infantil de niñas, niños y adolescentes en situación de riesgo: menores no acompañados, niños y niñas afectados por conflictos armados y trabajadores infantiles
[The Participation Rights of Children and Adolescents at Risk: Unaccompanied Minors, Children Affected by Armed Conflicts and Child Workers]." Children, Youth and Environments 17 (2). Retrieved [date] from http://www.colorado.edu/journals/cye/
Children and young people often represent over 40 percent of the societies in which they live, yet they have traditionally been excluded from decision-making all over the world. In general, children and adolescents are usually considered as passive members of society, without sufficient initiative and maturity to exercise their right to expression.
However, their right of participation is clearly present in several articles in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Articles 12 and 17 recognize that children have the right to freedom of expression, to form and join associations and to seek and receive appropriate information. The CRC therefore ensures that children have their place in civil society, along with opportunities to contribute, exchange ideas with other social players and be consulted about matters that concern them. Participating is not only expressing their opinion and asking; it involves being responsible, being aware, and getting involved.
Save the Children works closely to foster child participation because:
- Children can shape their own future rather than simply being beneficiaries of adult intervention.
- Young people who have learned how to influence decision-makers will be more confident as adults and may use these skills to improve their societies in the future.
- Public policies on children’s issues are more effective when children are involved in the decision-making process.
At Save the Children, child participation is a transversal aspect to be considered in all actions and programs aimed at children. Their participation has to be effective and seen as an ongoing process where beyond expressing their views, they are actively involved in the decision making. Yet, not only children have to be aware of their right to participation, but as adults, we have to be consistently committed to the participation of the youngest members of society. It is clearly not a simple process, but we cannot become discouraged from short-term results.
This book contains the papers and conclusions of the working parties at the training workshop and seminar held in Madrid in May and June. The seminar considered the participation of children and adolescents at risk, specifically those that live in armed conflict situations, or are unaccompanied minors or child workers. We listened to the accounts of Ariel Zapana, an Argentinean child worker; Ioannis Padilla, a former child worker from Peru; Zoraida Ávarez and Beatriz Retamosa, students from Miguel Delibes High School in Madrid; Daniel Asante, an unaccompanied minor; and Sanja Kuljanin, who described what it was like to be an adolescent during the war in the former Yugoslavia.
The seminar and workshops featured specialists from around the world (e.g., Argentina, Brussels, Spain, India, Peru, Sierra Leona, Sudan) who discussed their experience with child participation. A series of experts also provided us with useful tools for the effective diagnosis, assessment and application of those rights in cooperation projects for social inclusion and development. In addition, child participation was fostered with the presence of children and adolescents from different countries (e.g., Bosnia-Herzegovina, Peru, Morocco, Ghana and Spain) who told their stories and put forward suggestions about what child participation should involve. In this book, we have reproduced in full the stories they told to us.
In short, the training workshop and seminar, funded by the Madrid City Council, was an opportunity to bring various agents together to consider child participation, share experiences and analyze how the tools might be improved to make them more effective. A further objective was to put on the political and social agenda the importance of effectively applying child participation in our society, to achieve a more democratic and plural environment. We hope that this first step opens the door to further debate and the effective incorporation of child participation rights.
You can ask for the book from ragonzale@savethechildren.es. Soon it will be available at the web page http://www.savethechildren.es.