Justice and Consumers

Dear Readers, Welcome to this first 2021 edition of the newsletter on the rights of the child. It is a very exciting year for our work, as we are finalising preparations for the adoption of the new EU Strategy on the rights of the child and the EU Child Guarantee. In this edition you can read about the consultations with more than 10.000 children that were conducted for these two important policy initiatives - with a big "thank you" to the child rights organisations who ran them. You will also find the outcomes of a study on child participation in EU political and democratic life and its accessible version prepared in cooperation with children. Next time - we get back to you with a new Strategy!

Over 10,000 children and young people participated in a consultation on the EU’s upcoming Child Rights Strategy and Child Guarantee. In summer 2020, the European Commission invited UNICEF, Eurochild, Save the Children, World Vision and Child Fund Alliance to support the European Commission’s work and consult children on the upcoming EU Strategy on the rights of the child and the EU Child guarantee. The results from these consultations are outlined in the report “Our Europe, Our Rights, Our Future” that was launched in a virtual event on 23 February 2021.

The Commission published a study on child participation in EU political and democratic life. The study looks at the situation in the EU and UK at national level, and in 10 countries at national and local level - with 12 case studies. In the course of this research, over 200 children and young people have shared their opinions and experiences in interviews and focus groups.

The European Commission commissioned a study to look at how to optimise learning materials on the EU for children aged 5 to 18. Its results will help the services developing such materials for children to better adapt to their target audiences’ needs, preferred channels, and specificities such as their location, socio-economic background, any disabilities, learning difficulties, etc.

The European Migration Network (EMN) is an EU network of migration and asylum experts who work together to provide objective, comparable policy-relevant information and knowledge on emerging issues relating to asylum and migration in Europe. EMN Bulletins are quarterly newsletters which provide an update on recent EU and national developments on migration and asylum as well as providing an overview of key statistics, EMN publications, events and developments.

The Court of Justice of the European Union has established in its recent ruling that EU Member States must necessarily take into account the best interests of the child at all stages of the return procedure. The Court stated that before issuing a return decision in respect of an unaccompanied child, a Member State must verify that adequate reception facilities are available for the child in the State of return.

Defence for Children International is a worldwide movement for children’s rights with National Sections and Associated Members active across the five continents. Each of DCI’s National Sections works on the child rights issues that are the most relevant to their respective national contexts.

KIND and Child Circle’s report provides recommendations on how to protect unaccompanied children. At the heart of the recommendations is that free quality legal assistance is a central safeguard for the protection of unaccompanied children. To raise awareness of the key features of quality legal assistance for unaccompanied children, the report draws from national good practices, highlighting the experience of KIND in the United States and of its partners in Europe, while indicating priorities for future reform and engagement.

The MINT project aims at supporting and facilitating the integration process of children, enhancing social relations and empowering both local youth and third-country national (TCN) children. The project specifically supports the integration of newly arrived children, including unaccompanied and separated children, paying particular attention to the gender-specific barriers to integration of girls and boys. This recording from the webinar will present the project activities (e.g. child-led awareness-raising and advocacy activities, language learning opportunities, etc.) and outputs of MINT with a focus on the peer-to-peer mentoring programme including the main challenges and lessons learnt during the two mentoring cycles from which over 140 migrant children and more than 110 local youth benefitted.

CRIN has invited youth climate activists around the world to help shape CRIN’s strategy on environmental issues for the next few years. It is a team of 12 advisers between the ages of 9 and 18 from different regions, backgrounds, experiences and who campaign on different environmental issues. This marks the first time CRIN will be collaborating with under-18s to this degree.