news
slide

Children should be able to participate in decision-making

On 2 March, Eurochild German members the National Children’s Rights Coalition Germany and Deutsches Kinderhilfswerk e.V. presented the results of the German children’s consultations which have fed into a study researching current child participation in political and democratic life.

According to children 10 to 19 years old, who participated in the consultation, participating in the democratic life is like a labyrinth: it’s complicated to find information on how to do it. The children also shared it was a lot easier to get involved while in school and several already had experience with decision-making at the local level.

One 11-year old girl described her involvement in a children’s town council with a children’s mayor. She highlighted that she still felt like adults were actually fully in charge of the decision-making process. Overall, the children called for better information and asked to set up of a mentor system, to support children who would want to get involved and participate.

The event also offered the occasion to discuss the importance of the upcoming EU Strategy on the Rights of the Child for Germany. German organisations stressed the importance of including all children and civil society in decision-making processes and asked for concrete recommendations to the EU Member States on allocating resources and effective monitoring.

Read the results of the German consultations (in German)




Related News/Events

slide
7 March 2023

Eurochild gives Child Participation and Child Protection training to the European Network of Ombudspersons for Children (ENOC)

The content of the training was inspired by largely by current and former Eurochild Children’s Council members. As part of Eurochild’s continuous capacity building efforts and due to our experience…
read more
slide
21 December 2022

Eurochild supports children participating at the 14th EU Forum on the Rights of the Child

Earlier in September, the Eurochild Child Participation Team supported children participating and leading sessions during the latest edition of the EU Forum on the Rights of the Child This autumn,…
read more
slide
21 December 2022

Young people have their say on education, LGBTIQ+ rights and more

Eurochild supported 60 children and young people from all over Europe coming to Brussels to meet Members of the European Parliament, as part of the YouPart (Youth Participation) project Running…
read more