The European Commission adopts the first comprehensive EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child

Strategy
Rights
Childhood
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European Union

On the 24th of March, the European Commission adopted the first comprehensive EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child, as well as a proposal for a Council Recommendation establishing a European Child Guarantee to promote equal opportunities for children at risk of poverty or social exclusion, which complements the Strategy. 

The new strategy, proposed at both the European and global level and developed via an enquiry which collected the views of over 10,000 children, both inside and out of the European Union, is structured around six different areas which cover themes such as child poverty, children’s participation in democratic life, and child friendly-justice. In this last area, the Strategy places an emphasis on actions geared towards specialised judicial training for professionals, the implementation of the Council of Europe’s Guidelines on Child Friendly Justice, and the use of alternatives to judicial action, amongst others. 

Moreover, the Strategy focuses on ending all types of violence against children as one of its principal objectives, including support regarding gender-based and domestic violence, and an increase in the prevention of harmful practices against women and girls.

For its part, the proposal of the European Child Guarantee includes a series of recommendations to national authorities to provide “free and effective” access for children in need to key services, such as education, healthcare, housing, and healthy nutrition. This new strategy also envisions that countries will name national coordinators for the Child Guarantee, who will handle the monitoring of the actions and whose first task will be to create multiyear action plans, which should cover up to the year 2030 and have a specific collection of actions.