World Vision calls for the establishment of a child rights group in new European Parliament

At a European Parliament meeting today, organized by the non-governmental organisation Quality of Childhood, guest speaker and World Vision’s Brussels-based Director of Advocacy, Deirdre de Burca, called on newly- elected MEPs to establish an Inter-Group on Child Rights. Ms de Burca said that the European Parliament needed to play its part in helping the EU to become a global champion of child rights. She said the establishment of a new Intergroup on Child Rights, consisting of MEPs from different European Parliament Committees, would allow for the mainstreaming of a child rights agenda across the broad work programme of the Parliament. MEPs Julie Ward and Anna Hehd also spoke to the meeting and expressed their support for the promotion of a child rights agenda across the Parliament.

“The EU has made ambitious commitments in the Lisbon Treaty to promote and protect child rights both within and outside of its borders” said de Burca. “Now the EU institutions need to look at exactly how they are going to play their part in realising these objectives. As the only directly elected EU institution that has a special role to play in promoting the rights and interests of citizens, the European Parliament is an obvious candidate to be a global child rights champion.” Ms de Burca continued, “The Intergroup is a structure available to European Parliamentarians to allow MEPs from different committees who have an interest in a particular area to meet on a regular basis to share information and to agree a coordinated approach. World Vision would like to see key MEPs from each of the relevant Parliamentary Committees acting as a focal point for child rights within those committees. These MEPs could then come together in an Intergroup to share information and to plan strategically on how to mainstream child rights across the policy-making and legislation of the entire Parliament” she said.

World Vision also intends sending a letter to all MEPs in advance of the hearings they will conduct of new Commissioners in the autumn, asking them to encourage key Commissioners to appoint child rights experts to their cabinets. “This will ensure that the European Commission also plays its part in promoting the interests and rights of children across its work programme for the coming five year period” said de Burca. “World Vision is hopeful that at the end of the next five year term of office, the EU will have put the mechanisms and structures in place across its institutions to ensure that truly becomes a global champion of child rights. This will also encourage greater support for the EU by members of the general public, as most people are champions of child rights and would like to see the EU being more active on this issue both within its own borders and internationally.

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