Malta has still not transposed the children’s right to participate in policy development, 28 years after ratifying a UN convention, according to a position paper by the National Institute for Childhood.
The shortcoming remained despite the recent inclusion of ‘children’s rights’ in the Family Ministry portfolio, the paper, which will be presented to Parliament in the coming weeks, adds.
The institute, within the President’s Foundation for the Wellbeing of Society, is calling for meaningful and purposeful participation by children.
In the legal field, although meaningful and informed participation by children is a right defined by the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which Malta ratified in 1990, the measure still failed to form part of the national legislation.
Children’s human rights are generically catered for by the Constitution, which, however, does not contain specific provisions for children but treats them along the same line as adults, the paper notes.
It adds that local literature points towards an underlying lack of emphasis on the full and active participation of children and the establishment of a pertinent set-up that both fully encourages and implements it.
Among instances of lack of child participation, the paper notes that, within the health sector, children’s views are rarely sought or acknowledged and they are hardly ever involved in decision-making processes concerning their health.
More collaboration between health organisations and healthcare professionals dealing with children and young adults could help ensure that planning new services and upgrading existing ones would also involve the clients themselves.
Referring to strategies to engage children in the process of policy development, the paper refers to what is known as nominal participation, which is sometimes
witnessed at school prize day ceremonies where children are happy to go along by reading scripts prepared by adults and which reflect adults’ interests.
A local example of instrumental participation is meanwhile witnessed when a school decides to participate in a competition. The initiative is adult-driven and children feature as the ones following instructions to collect, for example, spent batteries or plastic bottles for the school to be able to obtain a good placing in the competition. Participation in this case is clearly a means rather than it being valued in itself.
The paper also highlights an encouraging example of transformative
participation that took place in a primary school. The children in the school became aware of the harm caused by balloon releases and decided to raise it on the agenda of EkoSkola and in Parliament.
Although children’s concerns were not given much heed, they did not give up and raised the issue with Puttinu Cares Cancer Support Group ahead of a marathon.
The Support Group willingly accepted proposals made by the schoolchildren as alternatives to the balloon release. Children proposed the release of pigeons and
soap bubbles.
This initiative served to raise awareness about the issue and, since then, other organisations have chosen alternatives to balloon releases, the position paper notes.