CLB to candidates: Show us your plans for the children, youth

| File photo

MANDAUE CITY, Cebu — Children may not be able to join the local and national elections on May 9, 2022, but they would also want their voices to be heard.

At the same time, they also would want to listen to what politicians seeking election had to offer for the betterment of their future.

This is the reason why the Children’s Legal Bureau (CLB) is hosting a two-day “Children’s Agenda Setting and Forum with Candidates” on April 23-24, 2022 in a hotel in Cebu City.

“This hybrid activity intends to provide an opportunity for all stakeholders to understand the platforms of political candidates which are related to children and the youth,” CLB said in a statement.

“We came up with the idea of this activity (Children’s Agenda Setting and Forum) because oftentimes the children’s agenda are left out in the programs of candidates,” said Lawyer Joan Dymphna Saniel-Amit, CLB executive director.

Saniel-Amit added that “children cannot vote but they are used by candidates to make them look good — hugging and carrying children — yet when it comes to their platforms, there is no mention of children.”

On the first day of the forum on Saturday, April 23, child rights advocates (CRAs) and members of the Peer Support Group (PSG) coming from 17 identified partner areas of CLB and its partners under the APPROACH Consortium will serve as participants of the training and workshop.

Topics discussed included voters’ education, online sexual exploitation of children (OSEC), and the recent Alternative Report of the Children’s NGO Network (CNN) to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

A workshop followed “to provide opportunities for CRAs and PSG members to identify concerns in their respective areas and their suggested courses of action, which would later form the Eight-Point Children’s Agenda as the output of the participants,” CLB said.

On Sunday, CLB will allow politicians seeking different elective posts to share their platforms that will benefit the children and to commit to pushing the Eight-Point Children’s Agenda drafted by the participants.

“Because of the usual absence of the children’s agenda in the election discourse, it becomes necessary to organize this Children’s Agenda Setting and Forum activity to hopefully seal commitments from policymakers and leaders in materializing the identified courses of action in addressing pressing child-related issues,” says Lawyer King Anthony Yap Perez, the organization’s communications and advocacy officer.

The Children’s Forum is a hybrid event that will allow some of the participants and guests to join remotely as a way to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)

Interested stakeholders may join the Sunday forum that is scheduled from 1 to 5 p.m., by registering here: https://tinyurl.com/ForumChildren.

CLB has partnered with USAID through the STRENGTH (Counter-Trafficking in Persons) CTIP Project and Terre Des Hommes (TDH) in organizing this activity which serves as the kick-off event for the silver anniversary celebration of CLB, a leading and reputable Cebu-based non-government organization echoing child rights advocacy and bolstering legal protections accorded to children for 25 years.

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