We care about
Members Only

  Library / Updates / European Parliament adopts Strategy on Rights of the Child,  

16/01/2008

European Parliament adopts Strategy on Rights of the Child,

Strasbourg, 16 January. After debating how to strengthen the European strategy to protect the rights of children, the European Parliament adopted a resolution based on the own-initiative report drawn up by Roberta Angelilli (UEN, IT), entitled “Towards an EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child.” The Strategy calls for children's rights to be mainstreamed in all external policies and actions of the EU. The resolution was adopted by 630 votes for, 26 against and 62 abstentions.

Overview of the strategy: Parliament calls on the Commission to put forward a proposal to create a specific budget line for children's rights, in order to finance work to implement the Commission Communication, and child-specific projects, such as a European early warning system on child abductions. The budget line should also include subsidies for NGO networks working in this field and ensure children's participation in the work to implement that Communication and those projects. It calls for an effective monitoring system backed with financial means and annual reports to ensure proper implementation of the commitments, adding that the Commission should draw up a comprehensive EU Child and Youth Report every two years, beginning in 2008.

The strategy also calls for:

efforts to tackle the sale and consumption of drugs and alcohol in educational establishments and in their vicinity, and for children to be provided with information about the dangers they present

steps to tackle with greater determination issues relating to discrimination, social diversity, the teaching of tolerance in schools, education in healthy living, food education, prevention of the abuse of alcohol, drugs, medicinal and psychotropic products and other intoxicating substances and appropriate education relating to sexual health

the Commission and the Member States to increase their efforts to combat alcohol-related harm for women and children, by:

    • providing better information to women on fetal alcohol spectrum disorders
    • providing adequate health service and counseling for women with alcohol problems during and after pregnancy as well as for women and children in families with alcohol and substance-abuse problems
    • introducing stronger regulations on advertisement for alcoholic beverages and sponsoring of sport events by the alcohol industry, in the form of advertisement prohibitions between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., and by prohibiting alcohol advertisements with children's content (computer games, comics), so as to not communicate a positive image of alcohol to children
    • prohibiting alcohol beverages which in their design are hardly different from sweets or toys, since children cannot make the distinction between alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages

For the Angelilli Report “Towards an EU Strategy of the rights of the child”: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=REPORT&reference=A6-2007-0520&language=EN&mode=XML

EP Summary of the Report: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/file.jsp?id=5479632