In 1999 the campaign was, evidently, on the celebration of the tenth anniversary of the CRC in which we set up different activities towards different groups.

In 2000 the campaign was focussing on the local elections (oct. 2000) and was called ‘Rights in your neighbourhood and your community’. The campaign consists of three parts:

Through the elementary schools, we distributed a 200.000 voting cards on which children (8-12 years old) could choose three priorities from a list of ten themes. Those themes were all topics that we gathered from our ombudswork, our contacts with children so that we made sure that it were issues that they really feel connected with, suc as: traffic, space to play, support for their own initiatives, clean streets etc… So the children weren’t asked to vote on parties or persons, but on issues.

By oct. 24th we had all the results registered and selected per community. Some 70.000 children responded and made a TOP 3 of: more space to play, safer traffic and the right to hang out at their own places. These results will be made public through media and to the newly elected local authorities.

The festival this year was set up as the ‘ideal’ community for kids: different participation possibilities, cultural events for kids etc… It was a huge success with some 10.000 people attending. The response from children was very positive. The Children's Rights festival is growing to become a structural event for children at the beginning of the schoolyear. With this festival we want to ‘teach’ children about local participation in a fun, relaxed way. We also hope that they will take some of their experiences home with them. Also the (local and national) authorities who were present, could gather positive inspiration that day.

All the info on participation on a local level was gathered in a booklet, the ‘Megaphone’. In this booklet some children tell the reader about their own initiatives and how they managed to realise those and we give some real practical tips on how to effectively work with the right to participate.

In 2000 we also invested alot, both in funds as in effort, in our website which will be presented with the annual report on nov. 20th. 2000. It will consist of three parts: children, youth adn documents. The website should become both an informationchannel and an interactive tool to communicate with minors.

Next to that the Children's Rights Commissioner attended to different conferences, with a variety of target groups and the office was also involved with several publications for children and young people.

With some partners in the field we also made a big Children’s Rights maze to set up at different events for children.

During the past working year we received about 900 request, being informative questions, complaints and suggestions. The cases were altogether covering 1490 individual children. There is a noticeable increase in ombudscases and in the number of children involved.

Thematically there was not much difference with last year: family issues (divorce, abuse…), education (discrimination in schools, legal position of students…), health, youth care (adequate help, rights of children in care…), environment etc…

About 44% of the request were about the need for information.

Most of the recommandations are about issues that are brought to the political agenda by MP’s (legislative proposals). Up untill now we have hardly entered issues ourselves on the parliamentary level. We do introduce themes to the government (who often initiate legislation) but that happens mostly in a more informal way: working groups, thematic discussions with cabinets and such.

On the parliamentary level we entered recommandations on:

	Advertising on TV before and after children’s programmes,
	The implementation of the Non-discrimination declaration in schools (initiated by the Children's Rights Commissioner),
	The agelimit on child-cyclists,
	Rights of clients in welfare services,
	ENOC call for action (initiated by the Children's Rights Commissioner),
	Educational support,
	Daycare,
	Commercialising of symbolic figures like Santa Claus, the Easter bunny etc.,
	Daycare at home for sick children,
	Intercountry adoption,
	Divorce mediation,
	Educational support for parents.

On a government level, we formulated recommandations on:

	Children’s rights in the context of asylum,
	The revision of youth care towards an integrated model,
	Youthwork,
	The dialogue on Children’s Rights on a policy level,
	A national Children's Rights Commission,
	Legal aid for minors,
	The legal position of minors,
	Child impact studies,
	Children's Rights training for professionals working with children,
	A statute for students in school,
	Student councils and school participation,
	Right to information and access to the media.

Where on the parliamentary level we still work mostly in a reactive way, we can initiate issues more informally towards ministers. Most of the topics we discussed on government level were introduced by the Children's Rights Commissioner.

Research

In 2000 we set up a representative questionnaire for children and young people. We want to learn about their experience of daily life in their family, in their school and we want to know wether they know about Children's Rights and about the Commissioner’s work. This questionnaire is unique in its method of questioning minors themselves without adding an ‘adult’ filter.

From what we have worked out at this point it is clear that many children want (more) information on Children’s Rights.

We are also working on a structural dossier about discrimination in schools of pupils with a foreign background. This is an increasing theme in our ombudswork and we need to examine this carefully in order to make a well-founded recommandation. In this area we encounter complaints on the denied access to schools as well as on dircrimination of ‘foreign’ children within the school.

Ankie Vandekerckhove
Children's Rights Commissioner
October 2000