Professor Dr Daw Khin Aye Win

MEMBERS of Myanmar’s Committee for the Rights of the Child say they will draft a national plan of action “very soon” in response to a United Nations report issued earlier this month.

The report by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child suggested that Myanmar should strengthen efforts to integrate the principles of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child into its laws and practices.

The UN report followed a meeting with a 15-member delegation of senior Myanmar officials in Geneva on May 26.

“We will make a national plan of action which is in line with the ‘World Fit for Children’, a UN document,” said U Sit Myaing, the director general of the Department of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement and the secretary of the Myanmar Committee on the Rights of the Child.

‘A World Fit for Children’ is a UN agenda drawn up in 2002 that includes 21 goals to be achieved within a decade. The agenda focuses on education, combating HIV/AIDs, and protecting children from abuse and exploitation.

Members of the national committee say they have yet to discuss their priorities.

The committee says it will work with UN agencies, particularly UNICEF, as well as international non-government organisations, to implement the suggestions involving the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Myanmar became a signatory in 1991.

The suggestions, offered in response to the delegation’s presentation in Geneva, expressed concerns about child labour, child abuse, human trafficking, discrimination and other human rights issues involving children.

Professor Dr Daw Khin Aye Win, the general secretary of the Myanmar Women’s Affairs Association, said the committee was beginning to collect data on some of the crucial issues.

“For instance, before we went [to Geneva] we had a rapid survey on street children. We now know the causes. Now that we know the causes, we can plan intervention activities,” she said.

The UN committee was careful to acknowledge Myanmar’s achievements during the meeting, which Daw Khin Aye Win said was held in an “amiable atmosphere.” But the 18-member UN committee said it was concerned that certain laws in line with the convention were not being enforced.

“The committee notes that the 1993 Child Law prohibits child labour, but is deeply concerned that economic exploitation is extremely widespread in Myanmar and that children may be working long hours at young ages,” the report said.

Members of the national committee said children working in coffee shops and elsewhere should be “allowed to help their parents.”

“We cannot say the child shouldn’t work because they are helping the family,” said a committee member.

He suggested that the government should continue to provide informal education classes to those who cannot enroll in day classes.

On another issue, the report said the UN committee was “deeply concerned” about the use of corporal punishment in Myanmar. It recommended that the government work to eradicate the practice through legislation and encouraging parents to change their behaviour.

Daw Khin Aye Win said the committee and the government strongly oppose corporal punishment, but its use as a form of discipline was entrenched in family tradition.

“This corporal punishment is a real controversial issue in Myanmar,” she said.

Daw Khin Aye Win, a child psychologist, said she had given workshops on the issue, but it was hard to convince parents to change.

“Only when I explain and explain the negative consequences of corporal punishment, that it hinders the development of the child, only then some come to accept, but still some don’t,” she said “But the committee and the government are against it.”

The UN report said it “welcomed” the rules and regulations related to the Child Law, which were adopted in 2001, but felt the law was severely lacking in several areas, including that of juvenile justice.

“The committee is concerned at the limited progress achieved in establishing a functional and adequate juvenile justice system throughout the country,” the report said.

The report recommended that the government raise the age of criminal liability to an “internationally acceptable” age. The age of criminal liability in Myanmar is seven.

Daw Khin Aye Win says the issue is being addressed by the committee. She said the age of criminal liability had been set at seven because the Attorney General’s Office was concerned that some parents would use their children for criminal activities if they thought they could not be held liable for their actions.