Commission’s new European strategy to protect the rights of the child

The European Foundation for Street Children welcomes the announcement of a global and active European strategy in favour of the protection of the rights of the child to be presented at the end of 2005 - beginning of 2006 - by the Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Justice, Freedom and Security, Franco Frattini.

In this context, the European Commission intends to adopt a communication before the summer on the participation of civil society in the search for missing and sexually exploited children as well as a communication on the ways to strengthen the fight against trafficking in human beings (notably children) . Both these phenomena primarily concern the most vulnerable children of our society and therefore specific solutions and new active co-ordinated policies have to be discussed and best practice supported and promoted within the European Union. With this in mind, the European Foundation for Street Children warmly welcomes these concrete initiatives and will put its experience, expertise and networking capacities at the disposal of the Commission in order to ensure that these communications will soon lead to very concrete policies and actions in favour of better protection of children.

A further important step in view of this overall strategy will be a brainstorming meeting on 22 June by the European Commission on “ A Children's Strategy for Europe - Defining the Communication” with the participation of many civil society organisations.

In order to better promote and implement this overall European strategy for better protection of children’s rights and ensure a new coherent horizontal policy in this area in close co-operation with the relevant NGOs, the European Foundation for Street Children particularly calls for the establishment of a unit within a relevant European Commission DG which focuses only on the needs of children.

For further information, please contact Elisabetta Fonck, EFSC Advocacy and Lobbying Officer elisabetta.fonck@enscw.org