During the meeting of European foreign affairs ministers in Brussels on Monday 6 March, the Council of the EU adopted new EU guidelines for the promotion and protection of the rights of the child.
Through these guidelines – "Leave no child behind" – which echo the 2030 universal agenda for sustainable development, the EU reaffirms its commitment to promoting and protecting the rights of the child in its external human rights policy.
The document updates the 2007 guidelines. It sets out the international standards on child rights under the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, and provides concrete approaches to ensure the effective promotion and protection of these rights.
The EU should especially support and help third countries have the necessary capacity, in terms of human resources and expertise, to invest in child rights awareness campaigns and to work so that children themselves can participate in the decision-making for, and implementation of, policies concerning them.
The EU should support and encourage partner countries to: - develop child-sensitive indicators and impact assessments; - collect and use disaggregated data for each indicator according to gender, age, income, disability and other factors, and provide information on marginalised, vulnerable and hard-to-reach groups, inclusive governance and other issues, consistent with the EU's human rights-based approach; - promote solid results frameworks to track progress achieved for child rights ; - refer to relevant regional examples of good practice and encourage regional debate on fulfilling the rights of the child; - promote research and better understanding of child rights and how to enhance protection and prevention of violations of these rights. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)