With 356 million children living in extreme poverty, 149 million children under the age of 5 suffering from stunted growth due to malnutrition and 258 million children and adolescents not attending school, it is clear that the situation of children, especially girls, in the world is deteriorating and is now extremely worrying. Moreover, the VCT-19 pandemic and its economic and social consequences have had a serious impact on the youngest children and caused a major crisis in the respect of children's rights. It is now estimated that, as a result of COVID-19, an additional 86 million children have been pushed into extreme poverty and that nearly 24 million children are unlikely to return to school after the pandemic.
A major crisis in children's rights
Like 195 other States, France has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), the first binding treaty to make children full subjects of law. Through this text, France has committed itself to doing everything possible to ensure, on its territory as well as within the framework of its policy of cooperation and international solidarity (article 4 of the CRC), the services necessary for the effectiveness of the rights of the child, and to ensure their protection as well as their participation in the decisions that concern them. However, despite significant progress, in particular the adoption in August 2021 of the rights of the child as a priority of French development and cooperation policy (LOPDSLIM), France still has a lot of progress to make to guarantee a better effectiveness of children's rights in its international policy. For example, children's rights are not addressed as a priority and cross-cutting issue in French humanitarian or development policy, and French official development and humanitarian aid devoted to children is not identifiable because it is not possible to measure the amount of the budget envelope dedicated to children's rights.
Candidates, make children's rights a real commitment for France!
Aide et Action, along with the 18 other members of the Groupe Enfance, is therefore mobilizing on the occasion of the 2022 presidential elections and is calling on France to make children's rights an operational priority of the French cooperation and solidarity policy, by providing control and monitoring mechanisms, especially financial, and to take decisive measures to achieve gender equality.
