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Zimbabwean Children's Charter
Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children
July 15, 2011

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Background

The child rights sector of Zimbabwe is made up of several players all working towards the well being of children. All their efforts are done in the best interests of the child and complementing government efforts. One of the challenges that the sector has had has been effective coordination of all the advocacy work that the stakeholders are doing. This can be attested by the little progress made on the issues raised in the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child Concluding Observations of 1996. The report by the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child in 1996 concluded that there was no effective coordination of all the good work by stakeholders in the Child Rights sector of Zimbabwe. At the time of publishing this Charter some of these challenges are still being experienced. It is in view of this that the Child Protection Coalition was formed whose main mandate is to have a coordinated approach to advocacy for the respect, promotion and protection of children's rights. The Coalition is made up of civil society organizations in the child rights sector. Zimbabwe National Council for the Welfare of Children (ZNCWC) is its secretariat while Justice for Children Trust is the chair.

The Child Protection Coalition initiated this Children's Charter as an advocacy tool to continue addressing the concerns raised in the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child Concluding Observations of 1996 and other emerging issues in a coordinated way. The purpose of this Charter is to assist in coordinating, lobbying and advocacy efforts of the sector. As a wholesale document with the key elements which the children want addressed, the Charter becomes a rallying point in identifying the concerns of children. From it, a joint action plan will be drawn with government ministries and civil society organizations. The Children's Charter will essentially define issues for follow up interaction between the government, local authorities and civil society. The Charter will also play a key role in the evaluation of the child rights sector at the macro level in future.

Methodology

The Charter is a product of wide consultations with the children themselves. Through several initiatives, children around the country, primarily the junior parliamentarians, were consulted using Zimbabwe Youth Council (ZYC) structures countrywide. On average, three hundred (300) children participated at various platforms. A final validation workshop was then held in Harare in 2011 to consult with children from various contexts of vulnerability and these were: children living and working on the streets; children infected and affected by HIV and AIDS, children living in residential care institutions; children living with disabilities; children living in farming communities and children living in remote rural areas. This workshop's overall purpose was to triangulate what the junior parliamentarians had come up with against what other children were saying. The issues that came up were mostly similar to those that had been gotten throughout the country.

This information was collated and shared among stakeholders who made several comments and authenticated some of the submissions before getting the Charter published for presentation to government through the 2011 Junior Parliament whose opening date of the 19th Session appropriately coincided with this year's Day of the African Child: June 16, 2011. The forum presented the Child Protection Coalition with an opportune moment to present government with the Voices of the Zimbabwean Children - Children's Charter, their dreams and aspiration as they grow up to become empowered citizens of a democratic Zimbabwe.

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