Children’s Peace Prize 2009
"In projects like ‘Child Voice Out’ and ‘Learn From Me’, young people talk to their peers about their traumatic experiences and learn to confront each other about harmful behaviour, like using drugs or having unprotected sex. In this way, young refugees help each other prepare for life outside the camp: this is a striking example of new and improved international development."
Your excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In November of last year I visited Kibati refugee camp just outside Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
I remember the pungent odour that hung over the camp, which sheltered thousands of displaced people living in overcrowded tents.
I remember the shortages and the deprivation.
I remember the fear of violence, from the Congolese government army on one side of the camp and Laurent Nkunda’s rebel group on the other. And they were very close by, I can tell you.
What I remember most of all, though, is the children – vulnerable, but above all courageous.
For me, that memory makes this opportunity to speak to you here today extra special. Because the winner of the 2009 Children’s Peace Prize is a Congolese child. He lost his parents in the war and was forced to flee to a camp in Tanzania, but that didn’t break his spirit. Just 16 years old, he now helps others in the same situation to build a new life for themselves. Sisi kwa sisi, Children for Children.
He is supported in his work by World Vision, the organisation that operates the refugee camp in Tanzania. I am delighted that World Vision focuses extra attention on children and teenagers. In projects like ‘Child Voice Out’ and ‘Learn From Me’, young people talk to their peers about their traumatic experiences and learn to confront each other about harmful behaviour, like using drugs or having unprotected sex. In this way, young refugees help each other prepare for life outside the camp: this is a striking example of new and improved international development.
I am proud that ongoing Dutch government support for World Vision has helped make these and other projects possible.
Ladies and gentlemen,
This year we celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I say ‘celebrate’ deliberately, because a great deal of progress has been made. Let me give you two concrete examples. One: the number of children who die before the age of five dropped from 12.5 million in 1990 to nine million last year. Two: more and more children are going to school. In 2002, 115 million children were denied an education; five years later that number had fallen to 101 million. We’re making good progress.
Education is, of course, a vital issue. Only yesterday evening I returned from Pakistan, where schools have been set up in camps and villages under the Education in Emergencies programme. Reinstating children’s daily routine allows agencies like UNICEF to pave the way to recovery. The Dutch government is delighted and proud to be supporting this work. When I was there yesterday, I carefully listened to the children. They were really making the atmosphere in the camps. And the most important thing their parents asked me, was: please make sure our kids get an education.
As I said, a lot of progress has been made, but there is still a long way to go. Child labour, trafficking in children and sexual exploitation of children, and girls in particular, are critical problems.
In August of this year, the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 1882, agreeing that violence against children in armed conflict situations must no longer go unpunished. Today I call upon all nations to implement this resolution as quickly as possible. The same goes for Resolution 1888 on the prevention of conflict-related sexual violence against women and children, and the implementation of obligations under the Convention on the Rights of the Child. I hope that Marta Santos Pais, the Special Representative on Violence Against Children, and Radhika Coomaraswamy, the Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, will play an important role in this respect. They have to energize and they can energize.
Sierra Leone proves that progress is possible. Not so long ago, a terrible war made victims of countless children in Sierra Leone. Today it champions children’s rights. Not only has it transposed the Convention on the Rights of the Child into national law, it has also implemented optional protocols on the involvement of children in armed conflict and on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography. The Dutch government hopes, and I hope, that others will follow Sierra Leone’s good example.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Dutch government thanks KidsRights for it’s tremendous effort in helping kids and, of course, for making this award ceremony such an important international event. Therefore, I would like to close with the words of Om Prakash Gurjar, the winner of the 2006 Children’s Peace Prize. He said: ‘In the village in India where I was born and raised, the notion of child rights does not exist.’
Our challenge is to change that.
Thank you.