World's parliaments focus of the condition of children

The Inter-parliamentary Union (IPU) has called on states to criminalise and penalise all forms of sexual exploitation and abuse of children, including within the family. The call came on Saturday at the end of the IPU's 106th conference, held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso at which 1300 delegates from 141 parliaments, 39 of them in Africa, also called for the "immediate elimination of the worst forms of child labour". The parliamentarians also agreed to "promote education as a key strategy as well as to examine and devise economic policies, where necessary in cooperation with the international community, that address factors contributing to these forms of child labour". Participants in the five-day meeting agreed to "translate into concrete actions their commitment to the progressive and effective elimination of child labour that is likely to be hazardous, interfere with the child’s education or be harmful to the child’s health or physical, mental, spiritual, moral or social development". The conference also called on states to take children's views into account in order to establish what is in their best interests when taking decisions that affect them. To that end, it asked governments to appoint special ombudsmen for children. "UNICEF was really associated in the drafting of the resolutions. They are complete and comprehensive and, if implemented, will help change children's plight in the world," Rima Salah, UNICEF's representative for Western and Central Africa, told IRIN. "UNICEF is going to strengthen its collaboration with IPU in each country, each region and its headquarters in Geneva." According to UNICEF, parliamentarians can play a key role in making children’s lives better because of their position. "They vote budgets, and they are the ones who make decisions on laws concerning social and economic development specially related to children," UNICEF said. The situation of children is still poor in developing countries. In Africa, a child dies every two minutes and some 50 million children need special protection, UNICEF statistics show. Thousands of children fall victim to child traffickers each year in West and Central Africa. The conference also urged the international community "to lift embargoes and other sanctions which have negative effects in various parts of the world with special emphasis on severe situations". In an address to the conference on Thursday, President Blaise Compaore of Burkina Faso described as "unjust" the embargoes on Cuba, Iran, Libya and Sudan and air strikes in recent years against against Iraq. "Those sanctions cause pains and unheard trauma to populations and proved conter-productive," he said. "Parliaments do not have only to vote laws but also to influence on public policies, to control governments and to conduct social action," according to Melegue Maurice Traore, speaker of Burkina Faso's parliament and the new IPU chairman. Traore said that the question on children was the "most pertinent" one the parliamentarians discussed during the conference, which also looked at HIV/AIDS. "It is very important to know that from now on our laws should not be different from one another," he added. Parliamentarians noted that in recent wars, children have become victims of violence or have been recruited into militias in places such as Albania, Bosnia, Burundi, Rwanda, Sierra Leone and Somalia. According to outgoing IPU chair Najma Heptulla, the world "spends more money to purchase weapons and ammunition as well as cosmetics and other luxury items" instead of children's fundamental needs. "It is even worse when children become weapons during armed conflicts," he added. The legislators also deplored the teaching of hatred, xenophobia and violence to children through games and warlike toys and by some fanatical religious groups. They urged states to take measures to foster a culture of peace and non-violence in particular among children and young people. "On one hand we are holding conferences aimed at inculcating a peace culture; on the other, and with the same enthusiasm, we invent and patent new war games for children," Heptullah said. "We have to wonder if we are honest."