LILONGWE-(MaraviPost)-A Coalition of Child Rights Organisations says the country is not doing enough in terms of promotion children’s rights a development which has left many children at risk.
This was disclosed on the sidelines of the Third Cycle of Universal Periodic Review Dissemination and Implementation Framework workshop on Friday, June 3, 2022 in the capital Lilongwe.
Chairperson for the NGO Coalition on Child Rights Desmond Mhango said government needs to systemize child protection as well as promotion of child rights and welfare of the child across the country if the children are to be fully protected.
Mhango highlighted that government needs to comply with the submission to the United Nations treaties as well as African Union (AU) treaties that will help to protect child rights from the grassroots to the national level.
“Malawi government has to comply to submissions to the UN treaties and also the African Unions treaties and in particular in this case is the Universal Periodic Review reporting and implementation of the concluding observations and recommendations.” said Mhango.
In addition Mhango said, “there is need for the country to have system which speaks to structures and have focal person’s in the district councils as provided in the Children and Young Persons act.”
In his remarks Director of Children affairs in the Ministry of Gender Community Development and Social Welfare McKnight Kalanda expressed governments commitment to making sure that all the recommendations are taken on board.
According to Kalanda despite that there are so many policies aimed protecting children but there is always a gap in terms of dissemination of information hence challenging to CSOs to take a leading role in making sure that everyone is aware of such policies.
Kalanda added that there is need to empower and use Community Based organisations to address most of critical issues “because it’s them who can make a suitable research on challenges children face on the ground.
“As a ministry, we worked with USAID between the years 2009 and 2014 on a package which we were calling ‘minimum standard for vulnerable children in terms of services’ and one issue that came out was that if you empower the community based organisations to first and foremost do a research in their own community on the rights of children it indeed works.
But what we have noted is that most of the CSOs when they are implementing their activities, they bypass these CBOs which makes it difficult for them to really be successful on the ground.” added Kalanda.
In her remarks, Save the Children International Country Director Kim Koch appealed to the government through ministry of justice and constitutional affairs and ministry of Gender, Community Development and Social Welfare to fast track the process of developing and submitting the state party report on African Charter on rights and welfare of the child.
Koch further recommended government for opening up in accommodating views from various stakeholders including Civil Society Organisations on how best to protect rights of children in the country.