6 May 2008
Windhoek — The second session of the Namibian Children's Parliament starts today in the National Assembly.
The Children's Parliament has now become an annual event on the Namibian Parliamentary calendar, having been launched last year during the first sitting from May13 to 18.
The number of participants to this year's Parliament, which ends on Friday, has been increased to three learners per region.
A statement from the National Assembly said this morning the Junior Speaker and Junior Deputy Speaker will be sworn in followed by the setting of an agenda and topics for discussion.
The official welcoming ceremony during which Elsabe van Vuuren, Junior Mayor of the City of Windhoek; Clever Mupaura, Speaker of the University of Namibia Parliament; Rushnan Murtaza, UNICEF Officer-in-Charge, and Spea-ker of the National Assembly, Dr Theo-Ben Gurirab, will present speeches, will take place this afternoon.
Various organisations and ministries will address the Children's Parliament on social and economic issues affecting children, the "Unmet Rights of Children - Children as Active Citizens" and the Millennium Development Goals.
On Friday, the Parliament will hold general discussions on the communiqué, adopt the final communiqué and also tour the Heroes Acre, museum, Unam, and Polytechnic of Namibia.
Last year, corporal punishment in schools, disparities in education in urban and rural areas, rural-urban migration and its effects on the increase in crime and squatter settlements, street kids, unemployment, HIV/Aids, the increase in crime especially in the tourism sector, Grade 10 dropouts, the involvement of the private sector in the education system and discipline among learners in schools, formed part of the discussions.
The Children's Parliament is meant to lobby the Government and its stakeholders in the law-making process to speed up policies that improve the rights and welfare of children and young persons in line with international conventions and the constitution.
Article 12 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) says that children have the right to express their opinion.
"State parties shall assure to the child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of the child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
"For this purpose, the child shall in particular be provided the opportunity to be heard in any judicial and administrative proceedings affecting the child, either directly, or through a representative or an appropriate body, in a manner consistent with the procedural rules of national law," it says.
Namibia is a signatory to the CRC.
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