Opportunities for children to speak up, share and express their wishes

On the occasion of the 2023 Children's Action Month, many localities across the country organized Children's Forums. This is an opportunity for children to speak up, share and express their wishes to leaders at all levels to promptly resolve the issues they are concerned about.

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Kien Giang province has just organized the Kien Giang Provincial Children's Forum 2023 with the theme "Children participate in building a safe, friendly and healthy living environment for children". 120 outstanding children representing more than 386 thousand children in the province participated in the forum.

They confidently present child-related issues to leaders at all levels.

At the forum, children actively participated in discussions, raised questions, contributed opinions and recommendations on issues related to children, and proposed solutions from the perspective of children. In particular, they focused on expressing their desire for leaders at all levels of government, schools, and families to pay attention to ensuring the implementation of rights for poor children and ethnic minority children; preventing and combating child drowning; preventing and combating physical violence against children at home and school; and preventing and combating child sexual abuse. In addition to asking questions, at this year's forum, representatives of children in the province also sent to the leaders very meaningful and especially moving recommendations and messages.

Speaking at the forum, Deputy Director of the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs, Head of the Forum Organizing Committee Ly Anh Thu requested departments, branches, sectors, and organizations in the Provincial Steering Committee for Child Protection, People's Committees of districts and cities to continue to have specific solutions and actions to contribute to increasingly better implementation of child care, protection, and education. Strengthening the grasp of children's opinions and aspirations, clearly assessing the current situation of prominent social issues that negatively impact children's development to advise appropriate measures and solutions for Party committees and authorities at all levels. Ensuring increasingly better implementation of children's rights, towards building a safe, friendly, equal and healthy living environment for all children. Ms. Ly Anh Thu also hopes that children will be bold, confident, continue to promote their right to participate and speak up about their thoughts, aspirations, and issues of concern to children; actively exercise, study hard, have morality and ideals to realize your dreams.

The Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Quang Tri presided over and coordinated with the Provincial Youth Union, People's Committees of districts, towns and cities; Plan International and World Vision to organize the Quang Tri Provincial Children's Forum in 2023 with the theme: "Children participate in building a safe, friendly and healthy living environment for children". 58 outstanding children from 9 districts, towns and cities representing more than 180,000 children in the province attended the forum.

To ensure children's right to participate, every two years, the Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs presides over and coordinates with units and localities to organize provincial-level children's forums, so that children's representatives can express their opinions and aspirations on issues related to and affecting children. In May and June 2023, tens of thousands of children participated in children's forums at commune, ward, town, district, town and city levels; interacted and had dialogues with Party committees, People's Councils and People's Committees at all levels, contributing to ensuring the full implementation of their rights in the locality. Coming to the 2023 Quang Tri Provincial Children's Forum, children were provided with information on the implementation of children's recommendations at children's forums at all levels from 2021 to present. At the same time, discuss and jointly agree to put forth messages and recommendations on issues related to building a safe, friendly and healthy living environment for children today, such as: preventing and combating child abuse; preventing and combating child injuries and drowning; safety on the Internet environment...

At the forum, children met, had direct dialogues and sent messages and recommendations to leaders of provincial departments, branches, sectors and organizations and had their questions and wishes answered, thereby raising their understanding and awareness of children's rights, helping children know how to handle situations when they encounter them. The recommended messages of children at the Quang Tri Provincial Children's Forum in 2023 will help leaders at all levels, sectors and specialized agencies in building and planning relevant provincial policies suitable for children in the coming time. The Children's Forum is held every 2 years, however, due to the impact of COVID-19, in 2021, there was no direct forum but an online consultation for children. The children gave many very practical messages to send to leaders of departments, branches and sectors such as: regularly organizing consultation sessions to collect children's opinions; ending violent punishment for children; Open skill classes for children so they know how to protect themselves; increase penalties for acts of violence and child abuse; invest in playgrounds for children; teach children to swim to prevent drowning...

The Department of Labor, Invalids and Social Affairs of Ha Giang, the Department of Education and Training, the Provincial Youth Union in coordination with the Plan Ha Giang Office organized the 2023 Children's Forum with the theme: "Children participate in building a safe, friendly and healthy environment for children". Attending the forum were representatives of a number of departments, branches, units and nearly 100 students from districts and cities. With the spirit of: "Children speak up - children initiate - children act", at the forum, students participated in discussions and frankly shared many contents. In particular, the topics that the children were interested in were related to preventing and combating violence, abuse, and minimizing accidents and injuries; protecting children in the online environment, responding to climate change, preventing illegal child labor... Based on the questions of the students, representatives of departments, branches and units directly answered within the scope of their functions and tasks and proposed a number of solutions in the coming time.

The Children's Forum is a practical activity in response to the Month of Action for Children 2023, creating opportunities for children to speak up, share and express their wishes. At the same time, it demonstrates the interest and involvement of all levels, sectors and society in children's work, creating conditions for children to develop comprehensively.

VAN KHANH

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