As I was thinking about this year's message to children on International Children's Rights Day and reflecting on the challenges, I wondered whether: if the message were written by the children themselves, would it have the same concerns and worries? Would it have the same value and weight? My own answer, at least, is in the affirmative and should not surprise us. Children are in a better position than adults to talk about what they themselves are experiencing. They are constantly proving that as citizens of today they can be protagonists in the issues that concern them as equal and active members of society, asserting their rights. These are precisely the rights enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted today, 20 November 1989, marking the entry into a new era that leaves behind notions that saw the child as a passive recipient of adult care, while creating an obligation for States to guarantee that every child enjoys all his or her rights.
However, despite the progress that has been made, children's unimpeded access to their rights remains an open challenge. Wars, the migration crisis, the energy crisis, the pandemic, natural disasters, including the climate crisis, are pushing more children every day into poverty, destitution, social exclusion and migration.
My Office, listening to children's demand for a shift to a new, environmentally friendly way of life, places the highest priority on the need to take decisions that will guarantee their right to a healthy environment, with particular emphasis on access to climate justice as a means of claiming their rights. We support child environmental activists and urge all stakeholders to ensure their right to participate in peaceful protests. Children are rightly angry with adults and how we have managed to come close to the brink of disaster.
But other serious problems, such as wars and pandemics, compound and exacerbate the economic hardship of families and have a direct impact on children's lives, causing great concern. The State has a responsibility to support low-income households. Poverty and social exclusion not only affect children's experience in childhood, but often limit their life chances later as adults and poverty is passed down from generation to generation. Creating the conditions that will allow children to grow up in a healthy and safe environment in which they can enjoy their rights and develop their full range of abilities is immediate and urgent.
But a prerequisite for achieving this is for children themselves to be involved in the decision-making process in matters that concern them. Participation in leisure activities that allow children to relax and release their thoughts and express their emotions can not only provide an enjoyable and meaningful outlet, but can also prevent social exclusion.
With this in mind, to celebrate today's anniversary we have chosen to introduce you to a concert "The Sound of Rights" held in collaboration with the Sistema Cyprus project, which offers music education to a group of children and young people at higher risk of unequal treatment. "A thousand sounds", well, "a thousand rights", a concert that I hope will be a source of inspiration and respect for children and their rights.
(MB/SX)
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