A Voice For the Voiceless

MISSION

The Advocacy Project seeks to help community-based advocates produce, disseminate and use information, and so become more effective advocates for human rights and social justice

International Participation – Child Participation at the International Level Leads to Talk – And Then What?

The Global Movement for Children helps to bring young leaders to an important regional Summit, but provokes skepticism.

Last summer, in preparation for the Special Session on Children, countries that comprise the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) held a regional summit in Kathmandu, Nepal on May 19-23, 2001. The summit brought together top political, business and activist leaders who were already actively promoting children’s rights. But the most important contingent at the meeting was young people.

They were termed "Change Makers" - young people who are making a difference – and they came from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan and Maldives. The Change Makers, who were mobilized by Save the Children, were also trained in lobbying corporate and political leaders in their communities. They met with several adult leaders attending the Summit.

"When the meetings began, we presented our dreams for the world," says 16 year-old Mohammed Amin, who was the India country representative at the meeting and one of eight change makers representing India. "We said we wanted a clean world without pollution, that we needed more schools and playgrounds, and less of a gap between rich and the poor."

What they got, says Amin, was a lot of talk and no action. "The adults gave speeches, but I wonder if adults can do something other than just give a speech," says Amin. "A lot of promises were made, like stopping child labor. We are not sure they will be kept or how. People think with things like child labor that you can pick us up and shut us up…but when you stop us from working…children start doing something worse."

The Face of Skepticism: Children in need must be convinced of the value of international meetings.

Anil Kumar, 11, and Raju, 12, could not agree more. They went to Kathmandu as reporters for "Wallpaper," a newspaper written, edited and produced by street children from "Butterflies," a group based in Delhi .

"It was difficult to understand what the adults wanted to say," says Anil. Raju agrees. "The government spoke a lot about themselves and not so much about children, I guess that is why we had this meeting, so they could learn," he said.

International officials understand the impatience, but say that an important start has been made. "You have to remember that this was the first South Asia-wide meeting focused on children’s rights," says Ravi Karkara who wrote the proposal for the Change Makers workshop and works in the UNICEF South Asia regional office in Kathmandu, Nepal. "It’s a testament to the force of the Global Movement for Children, which has created momentum and opened communication channels between children, adults, and UN agencies.

Prior to the Global Movement UNICEF and Save the Children had never before coordinated like this in South Asia. This is certainly the first time the two agencies have brought children into the regional policy-making process. Children's input will slowly be included in programming cycles as well."

Karkara points out that after the Summit, the Maldives began to aggressively involve children in policy-making decisions and proposals. India and other SAARC countries, however, have lagged far behind. Only two children from South Asia attended the second Preparatory Committee meeting (PrepCom) for the Special Session on Children, which took place in New York in January 2001. The number increased to ten at the third PrepCom (June 2001), when every country but Pakistan sent only one child representative. Pakistan sent five.

"Just getting this handful of young delegates to the PrepComs in New York was like pulling teeth," says Karkara. But, he points out, UNICEF has hired a 22 year-old to prepare a follow-up report on child participation and that’s a first.

"The GMC and all the preparation it inspired as a lead-up to the Special Session definitely got people talking across generations," says Karkara. "But we have to sustain that momentum and it needs to switch now to a regional momentum. And we have to connect the change that’s happening on the ground, on the grassroots level, to change on the policy front. It’s not clear if the GMC is to become a long-term campaign. But it absolutely needs to be."