The Rights of the Child Commission (RCC), sponsored by UNICEF, participated in an international workshop – Adolescent and Youth Civic Participation held in Brasília, Brazil on December 10-13.
According to a release from the RCC, the event was part of the self-managed activities of the Global Human Rights Forum.
Approximately 130 participants from 12 different countries attended the international workshop: adolescents, young people, policymakers, leaders of social movements, student leaders and other stakeholders developing programmes and policies aimed at ensuring the right to participation of young people.
The first day was reserved for educational workshops for sharing information on concrete participation experiences and for collective knowledge production to ensure a systematisation of the consensus obtained.
For the first day, there were a total of six workshops with presentations from: Antigua and Barbuda, Argentina, Australia, Barbados, Belize, Brazil, Colombia, Guatemala, Guyana, Jamaica, Mexico, and Norway.
The last two days focused on the contexts of participation of young people at national, regional and global levels, and on existing public instances for participation, at the Global Human Rights Forum.
Representatives from RCC and the Culture, Youth and Sport Ministry participated in several thematic workshops, including: “Human Trafficking for Sexual Purposes: A Latin-American Reality”; “Strategies towards Development and Strategies to Fight Racism”; and “Child Labour: Violation of Human Rights of Children and Adolescents”.
The workshops were followed by the launch of the manual “Understanding Human Rights”.
Young people
The participation of young people has been recognised by international legal documents, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child (UN, 1989), and in many other human rights treaties relating to women’s rights, protection against discrimination, and the guarantee of civil and political rights.
Many countries, including Guyana, have incorporated the right to participation of young people at the policy level within organisations or institutions and in varying degrees within their national legislations.
Moreover, the UNICEF; United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA); and UNHABITAT offices in Brazil, the Youth Coordination of the Government of the Federal District, and the National Youth Secretariat organised this international workshop as a space for debate, exchange of experiences, and ideas and knowledge for the sharing on civic participation of young people.
The objectives were to: identify and systematise a framework for the participation of young people based on international norms, legislations and institutions of countries; give visibility to public policies that ensure the participation of young people in decision- making fora regarding the realisation of their rights; share experiences of participatory processes led by young people and create space for youth expression on innovative processes of participation, social mobilisation and use of new information technologies and communication.
