Moldovan PM says state's institutions must further focus attention on protection of child's rights

Chisinau, 17 November /MOLDPRES/ - Prime Minister Ion Chicu today chaired the third meeting of the National Council for the a Protection of the Rights of the Child this year, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.  

The discussions’ agenda included a string of subjects on children’s online safety, actions undertaken to carry out the process of distance learning in safe conditions for pupils and teachers, protection of minors against economic exploitation and involvement in any work, as well as the need to adjust the national normative framework in terms of children’s rights’ protection to the international standards.

The state secretaries informed the Council members about the stages of carrying out the action plan on the protection of children’s and teenagers’ safety on the Internet for 2017-2020, which is in phase of completion. On this period, decision-makers of the Economics and Infrastructure Ministry (MEI), Education Ministry (MECC) and Interior Ministry have managed to fulfill more measures in the sector, such as introducing the module on the digital safety within the primary cycle, organizing more than 4,000 actions of training children, parents and teachers as to the measures of preventing abuses on the Internet and implementation of the national plan of teachers’ digital alphabetization. At the same time, 80 prosecutors and judges were trained in terms of investigating cases of infringement of rights of the child in the online environment and a methodological guide was worked about, which contains information on the tactics of investigation and doing justice in this respect.  

”Many actions provided for in this Plan have longer validity that the 2020 year; thus, it is necessary to maintain the attention of the state’s institutions on actions of ensuring children’s safety in the use of the Internet. We need to prepare an updated action plan for the next period; we rely on the further support of our partners from UNICEF, CI La Strada and we thank them for the support provided to the government in this process,’’ PM Chicu said.  

The participants in the meeting discussed the need to discourage the phenomenon of children’s exploitation through work. According to data presented by Health, Labour and Social Protection Minister Viorica Dumbraveanu, 18 cases of employment of children under 16 have been documented this year. Thus, they discussed the necessity to make amendments to the legal framework in the labour sector and allow carrying out unexpected controls. ‘’We will make the necessary changes, so that we do not need a lot of inspectors to carry out verifications, but  establish a clear-cut mechanism of control of actions of children’s exploitation through labour,’’ the prime minister said.       

The participants in the meeting expressed the need to update the law on the rights of the child, adopted in 1994. In the context, they also discussed possibility to create a working group for the coordination and monitoring the implementation of the Lanzarote Convention, ratified by Moldova in 2011.

The meeting of the National Council for the a Protection of the Rights of the Child took place in the context of the days dedicated to the protection of the child, marked in November (the International Students’ Day and the World Prematurity Day are marked on 17 November, the European Day on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse on 18 November, World Day for Prevention of Child Abuse on 19 November and on 20 November -  Universal Children’s Day – the day when the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child).  

Photo: Government