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)