By Rojina Kandel
In Nepal, around 40 percent of the population is under 18, but children receive only around 4 percent of the government’s social protection budget. Even though Nepal has a proven social protection program for children, the Child Grant, in 2022, covered just 9.5 percent of all children. The absence of social protection further exposes children to the harmful effects of economic and climate-related shocks and unpredictable crises like the Covid-19 pandemic, which drove many families into poverty and children into child labor. However, in April 2023 16 Nepali and international civil society organizations wrote to Nepal’s finance minister urging an expansion of the Child Grant. Government officials warned that services for children suffering from malnutrition would be harmed due to health budget cuts.
Nepal has ratified most of the human rights conventions and optional protocols, but the respective domestic initiation in that respect is poor. The role of society and non-government organizations is inevitable for the effective implementation of the rights of children and their concerns. Children represent both the present and future of the nation. Without a delay in waiting for their turn to come tomorrow, it has become essential to protect and promote children from today itself by properly using the resources and the means available in the country.
Most importantly, Underlining the need for the human rights of children, the General Assembly of the United Nations Organization adopted the Convention on Child Rights (CRC) in 1989. Children are a zone of peace. They are an inseparable part of the society. Based on this reality, these days issues related to children are being raised institutionally. According to the Convention on Child Rights, the State has the responsibility of protecting, promotion, upkeep and fulfillment of children’s needs. In terms of the expression of commitments, Nepal is positioned far ahead in the international arena. Looking at article 39 of the Constitution, every child has the right to education, health, upbringing, proper care, sports, recreation and holistic personality development from the family and the state. The Children’s Act, 2018 has made provisions for the care and protection of children. Article 18 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, states that parents are responsible for the upbringing and care of their children and that the government should assist in the care of children if the condition of the parents is deplorable.
As, for nearly two decades, Nepal is continuously going ahead towards the respect, protection and promotion of Child Rights. During the period, the State made constitutional provisions by recognizing the issues related to the Child’s Rights and protection of the Child and also by formulating laws, regulations, national policy and national work plans to protect their rights. Different agencies at the national and local levels have been constituted to transform the declared policies and programs related to Child Rights into practice. The UN Agencies, INGOs and NGOs stationed in Nepal have made contributions to support these activities. Nepal has gained remarkable achievements during the last decade in the field of child education, child health and child participation. However, we should not forget the reality that these achievements are yet to meet the National Target Goal. Therefore, it is necessary to review the reasons for failure to achieve the goals by institutionalizing our achievements in the protection and promotion of Child Rights so that our achievement would be strong enough to protect children from violence, abuse and exploitation.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect People’s Review’s editorial stance.
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