Tirana, 10 April 2013 – The Children’s Human Rights Centre of Albania – CRCA, made public today its position regarding the advancement of children’s rights for the political parties that will race in the parliamentary elections of June 2013. The document drafted by CRCA is intended to raise the awareness of the political parties in integrating children’s rights and prioritizing them in their electoral programs.
The electoral programme is one of the main documents that each political party utilizes to express the views and opinions about the most important issues perceived by the country’s electorate. It is very important that political parties in Albania to use this electoral programme not only to express their ideological profile, but also to take concrete commitments regarding initiatives that they will undertake when they are in power.
The proposals, presented by CRCA emphasize some of the key issues that affect children’s rights today in Albania, such as violence against children, juvenile justice, the risks of new communication technologies, and policies like ‘Child Friendly Cities’, quality of pre-school education and economic support for children.
Considering the children’s agenda as highly necessary, CRCA has proposed that political parties have in their electoral programmes a range of child-friendly policies and commit to propose to the future parliament that will be constituted after June 23, a number of initiatives that will contribute substantially to the advancement children’s rights in our country.
It is very important that the political parties take on their political responsibilities to the electorate, not only by reflecting children’s rights in their electoral agenda but that they will lobby and pass new child rights initiatives in the next legislature.