Tirana, 20 June 2018 – The Albanian National Child Rights Network: ACT FOR CHILDREN! started today its work for the preparation of the Alternative Report to the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC). Albania should have already submitted its periodic reports to the CRC as of September last year, but it failed to do so. Finally, only this month the Government reported that it has started to draft its next report.
Albania is a signatory party to the Convention on the Rights of the Child since 1992 and has been reporting periodically to the Committee on the Rights of the Child. Despite generally good track record in terms of reporting, many recommendations remain unresolved by the country and children rights are often violated by public institutions. Violence against children in institutions and at family is rife.
CRCA Albania, a member of the Albanian National Child Rights Network, drafted and submitted first ever Alternative Report to the UN bodies back in 2001. It paved the way for a larger engagement of the civil society into the human rights treaty reporting system and submissions of Alternative Reports to other conventions such as CEDAW, CAT, CERD and UPR. This will be the 3rd CRC Alternative reporting that the civil society will be engaged, aiming to influence the outcomes for children in the country.
The CRC Alternative Report will be based on the main pillars of the Convention and will aim to engage civil society across Albania. Among the key issues to be included in the report will be right to education, minority children, family environment, juvenile justice and violence against children.
The Albanian National Child Rights Network was established in 1999 with the aim to strengthen the respect for the rights of the child. It has lead the efforts for the preparation of monitoring reports for several UN and Council of Europe conventions, while working to improve children and youth legislation and policies in the country. In 2018 the Network was reorganized to strengthen its efforts for child and youth rights, while adding the words ACT FOR CHILDREN as a sign of its new pro-active advocacy work across Albania.
For more information, please contact:
Ervjola Osmanaj
Child Protection Officer
ervjola.osmanaj@crca.al