Malawi’s Human Rights Consultative Committee (HRCC), a forum for different human rights organizations in the country, are lobbying Members of Parliament to pass the childcare, protection and justice bill in the current sitting of the house.
HRCC Executive Director Mabvuto Bamusi on Thursday in Lilongwe said that the bill collects all the issues concerning child protection and justice spread in various laws and policies into a single law.
“For the first time, Malawi will have a law which recognizes the rights and special needs of children, while at the same time focusing on their best interests as provided for in the Convention for the Rights of Children (CRC),” he explained.
In addition, he said, the law would recognize the vulnerability of the child, especially when that child comes into conflict with the law and it treats that child as a child — not as a juvenile offender, which adds to the child’s victimization.
The bill, among other things, proposes to protect children from harmful and undesirable practices like child labor, abduction, human trafficking, sexual abuse and harmful cultural practices which include forced marriages.
Chairperson for Legal Affairs Committee of Parliament, Henry Phoya, said the bill was important for it offered protection to all children in the country.
“This bill is targeting one of the most vulnerable persons in the society who are children and need to be protected by the law,” he said.
Malawi is currently using an outdated Children and Young Persons Act enacted in 1969, which contradicts the Bill of Rights in the country’s constitution and contravened the principles of CRC.
Source African Press Agency
African News from NetNewsPublisher.com
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