More children's rights

“Too many children are still victims of violence”

The right to education is also a child's right.

(Bild: stock.adobe.com – Louis-Photo)

Marie-Cécile Rouillon from the European Commission is the coordinator for children's rights - she talks to the "Krone" about the EU's competences and common goals for the well-being of the youngest children.

"Krone": What is the Commission's position on children's rights?
Marie-Cécile Rouillon: Children's rights are human rights. The question is how we can enforce these rights together with the EU member states. To this end, the EU Commission has drawn up a strategy for children's rights, which includes various points: Children's participation, digital security, social economy, protection from violence, etc. It is terrible to see that children are regularly victims of bullying and violence. The situation is really difficult, children have to endure the consequences of crises and war. The Commission has already done a lot to protect children from sexual abuse and cybercrime. Now the focus is on children's rights, which are in different areas.

What can be understood by this?
Children's rights include a broad spectrum of rights that are all intertwined: the right to education, the right to protection, the right to be heard, the right to health, and so on. The current situation is very different from country to country, very decentralized. That is why we need to work together with all partners: Some competences are at national level, some above, some below. We need to look at the justice, education and health systems. With our recommendations, we have tried to take a holistic view - we have to start with the needs of the children. What do they want? What do they want? Because far too often children have to adapt to the system, not the system to the children. We strive to take a holistic view of children's rights.

Working for the European Commission as Coordinator for Children's Rights: Marie-Cécile Rouillon

(Bild: Clara Milena Steiner)

How do you ensure that children's wishes and needs are heard, respected and implemented? How does the exchange between the Commission and children take place?
At the beginning, we asked more than 1,000 children via the specially created "EU Children's Participation Platform": What do you need to feel safe? Where do you feel safe - at home, on the Internet, at school, in clubs, when pursuing hobbies? What can the EU do for you? How can we continue to prevent violence? It is clear that protection against violence begins with prevention work - and discrimination is often the beginning of violence, which is why it was important for us to hear the wishes of many different children: Children with disabilities, with a migration background, children from minorities - for example, members of the LGBTQ movement or Roma.

Is the platform still active? How can children and young people get involved?
Yes, of course - it's actually a hub that connects platforms, organizations and institutions that enable the participation of children, for example youth councils. Anyone between the ages of 8 and 18 who wants to get involved has to be active on one of these platforms or in an organization, also for the safety of the children. More than 50 platforms from 24 countries are now represented. It's really impressive how young people are getting involved. They say: "No decision that affects us should be made without us." And that is their right!

How difficult is it to integrate the wishes and needs of children?
Today's children will still be here in 80 years' time, when we will all be long gone. But we must not forget: Children are not only the future, but also the present. We adults need to work on creating safe spaces for children where they are not discriminated against but can develop. It is wonderful to see what knowledge children have, how direct they are and how they stand up for their rights. We learn from them - we can learn so much from them! Building this platform was very difficult because we explain our plans to children between the ages of 8 and 18 in an age-appropriate way so that they understand them. They want to react, they want to participate.

What do children need to feel safe? Where do children feel safe? How can we protect children from violence? What can the EU do for children?

Marie-Cécile Rouillon, EU-Kommission

Does the EU get involved in the issue of children's rights? Isn't this something that is decided or implemented at local and regional level?
This is a very important point. We ask ourselves: where does the EU's competence lie? Sexual abuse of children, abductions across national borders, human trafficking and more - these are areas that fall within the competence of the EU. And then there are many areas that are the responsibility of the member states, but where we can help. We know how different the member states are - and they can benefit from better coordination, training and education, better monitoring, better exchange. We want to support the member states in this and they can rely on this support from the EU at every level, including financially. Of course, there is no "one fits all" solution, but the individual states can "copy" ideas from other states through this exchange and learn from each other. Our paper is a framework of recommendations!

The Governor of Carinthia, Peter Kaiser (SPÖ), drew up the child protection recommendations for the Committee of the Regions. How was the cooperation?
Very good! It's important that the Committee of the Regions has prioritized this issue and that Kaiser's opinion was adopted unanimously - that's a great sign! The title says it all: local and regional players should be strengthened in their efforts to protect children - because this is everyone's business. Although there are different systems, there are common challenges. For us, it's always a kind of reality check when we work with regional politicians - we can learn a lot from this. In this case, it worked very well right from the start.

Peter Kaiser delivered his statement to the Committee of the Regions in Brussels.

(Bild: Illias Teirlinck)

According to the CoR, children's rights affect all areas of life and should therefore be implemented and financed across various sectors - for example in agriculture or through the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+). How is this supposed to work?
This is indeed complicated. Regardless of the area in which new projects are financed or promoted, human rights and therefore children's rights should always be taken into account. There needs to be a very special focus on children - but the decisions ultimately lie with the respective administrative authorities. We can make recommendations, but the decision lies with the administrative authorities.

The European Commission has already announced the topic in its working paper for 2024. How important was it to publish these recommendations before the EU elections in June?
Very important! That was one of our goals for this year and in fact the publication of the recommendation had to be postponed several times. I am very happy that we managed to do that.

However, elections are coming up soon and there is no guarantee that these recommendations will be implemented after the elections. What do you want from the new commission?
The next steps must be to make children's rights even more of a global and international priority. These recommendations are the legacy of the current European Commission. I hope that the new Commission will build on the good work done so far.