Failure of the state to ensure children's rights and to respond to the need to create an institutional framework for the operation of children's camps and to designate a competent control body, the Commissioner for the Protection of Children's Rights Despo Michailidou has found.
In a public statement on the absence of an institutional framework for the operation of children's camps and the absence of a competent control body, the Commissioner, Ms. Michaelidou says that exercising the powers within her institutional responsibilities, she is obliged to come back by bringing the issue back into the public domain two years after the publication of the Office's Report (www.childcom.org.cy), adding that the State has failed to guarantee children's rights and to respond to the need to create an institutional framework for the operation of children's camps and to designate a competent control body.
It adds that the above Report was forwarded in 2020 to the Ministry of Education, Culture and Youth, the Ministry of the Interior, the Deputy Minister of Tourism and the President of the Association of Municipalities. It was communicated to the Parliamentary Committees on Education and Culture, Human Rights and Equal Opportunities between Men and Women, Finance and Budget, Legal Affairs, Interior and the Children's Committee.
It notes that despite the fact that the issue was discussed before Parliamentary Committees and correspondence was maintained between the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports and Youth with the Deputy Ministry of Tourism and the Deputy Ministry of Social Welfare, it did not result in any decisions being taken to fill the institutional gap. The relevant Ministries, each individually, do not consider that such an arrangement falls under their own control and as a result no action has been taken in this direction to date
, as they derive from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. While with the beginning of the summer season children's camps continue to be organized without standards and control and children of all ages will participate in them, the state is looking for who will be the responsible person while the agencies involved are consumed in arguments in order to get rid of this responsibility, says the Commissioner.
Finally, she calls on the state without any further delay and obstruction to take appropriate actions to ensure the rights of children taking part in children's camps. CNA
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