Fred Vubem
15 June 2006
The Minister of Social Affairs, Catherine Bakang Mbock made the promise during the UN Press Club meeting at Franco Hotel in Yaounde yesterday.
After the law of 29 December 2004, against child trafficking, the government of Cameroon is about to adopt yet another legislation to protect the rights of children against abuse by adults. The revelation was made yesterday by the Minister of Social Affairs, Catherine Bakang Mbock during the UN Press Club meeting at the Franco hotel in Yaounde. The event was organised by the UN Information Centre in Yaounde to mark the eighth day of the African Child to take place on June 16.
The law drafted in collaboration with UNICEF and ILO, the Minister said, will soon be tabled to parliament for adoption. The law falls within the framework of the government's broader social policy which consists of providing support to vulnerable children and the handicapped. Her ministry, she said, has plans to rehabilitate institutions that take care of vulnerable children. Also, government was going to continue the tradition of children's parliament geared at inculcating the spirit of participation in national life.
On June 16, 180 children MPs selected from all over the country will hold a session with members of government to articulate concerns related to their wellbeing. The children, who have been meeting for eleven days, were drilled on some topical national issues like good governance, HIV/AIDS and most of all, the rights and obligations of a child.
The Representative of the United Nations Children's Fund, Mariam Coulibaly Ndiaye said at the meeting that much has been done in the promotion of the rights of the child in Cameroon but much was still left to be done. She said her institution has been providing institutional support to Cameroon especially in the domain of human resource development. She said Cameroon was among the three African countries where pilot projects are financed by her organisation. The press meeting organised under the patronage of the Coordinator of the UN system in Cameroon, Sophie de Caen, also saw the participation of a representative from the International Labour Organisation and the UN Centre for Human Rights, UNCHRD. The Day of the African Child was declared by the OAU, now the African Union, in memory of 600 South African school children who were massacred in Soweto for protesting against studies exclusively in the Africana language.
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