Arab efforts for childhood welfare bear fruit

Mrs. Suzanne Mubarak Wednesday evening said that Arab efforts for childhood welfare had scored real accomplishments during the past decade.

Addressing the closing session of Arab Conference on the Rights of Children, Mrs. Mubarak added that the forum was held to stress the conviction that children had the right to have access to good health and education service.

She expressed her belief that the conference explored fresh prospects of Arab action for promoting childcare.

Representatives of all Arab countries attended the closing session held at the Arab League.

The Conference, which opened Monday, recommended the creation of an Arab action plan as a guideline for the Arab countries in promoting children's rights.

Releasing the final document Wednesday night, the conference also decided to establish an Arab fund for childhood and provide it with needed funds for training child cadres and supporting national projects.

The conferees invited Arab development funds to give priority to the finance of childhood and motherhood schemes and work out a code of ethics for child media.

It was also decided to hold an Arab childhood conference early in 2002 in Tunisia to agree on a work plan for children that would be effective until 2010.

The document called on the international community to shoulder responsibility over the deterioration in children status in the occupied Palestinian territories, to halt all Israeli crimes against them and provide them with protection.

It called for lifting sanctions imposed on Iraq, Libya and Sudan whose victims are primarily children and urged an end to exploitation of children in armed conflicts.

The document said that people should be educated about dangers of early marriage and traditional practices harming youngsters, especially the females.

Meanwhile, the Conference decided to set an Arab fund for childhood to finance its activities in the fields of training and rehabilitating working cadres in childhood domains. The fund will, also finance national projects in Arab countries.

Back