Financiarul

A Romanian delegation headed by State secretary of the National Authority for Child Rights Protection (ANPDC) Ileana Savu presented on Friday, in Geneva, the Romania’s consolidated Report on the implementation of theConvention on the Rights of the Child of the United Nations Organization (UNO) (reports number 3 and 4).

After the presentation of this report, UN Committee members addressed Romania’s delegation some questions and, in some cases, formulated criticism.

One refers to the Child’s Advocate institution, still not approved by the legislative and viewed as absolutely necessary.

Another question referred to specialization and taken measures for the fight against juvenile delinquency.

Members of the UN Committee also wished to find out why ANPDC, with inter-sectoral coordination prerogatives, is an institution subordinated to a ministry but, at the same time, unanimously appreciated the efforts made by this structure to fulfill its mandate.

A series of questions and criticism referred to the absence of an explicit budget for children, with clear reference to the sectors where the money must go.

However, Romania’s delegation received congratulations for the authorities’ concern to implement the legislation and international recommendations and for the way the country report was drawn up, fairly and without attempting to hide weak points.

The document revealed the progress made by Romania – to secure better protection of the children against abuse, neglect and exploitation, improvement of the quality of services, offered to minors in risk situation, or in case of whom a protection measure was adopted, improvement of access to medical services and boosting its quality, development of communal medical assistance, utilization of standardized documents in case of pregnant women, social services provision in maternities, implementation of a health education programme in schools and transformation of some maternities into the “Hospital, child’s friend”, measures taken by the Ministry of Education on access to education and early education in schools.

As well, the document clearly presented the challenges the factors involved in child’s protection are facing at the moment. Among them suicide in the ranks of teenagers, teenage pregnancy, harmful substances abuse or mental health problems, aspects the report says were not sufficiently approached by the authorities so far.

Another aspect signaled by the report refers to insufficient help given by professionals and specialized services to parents, so that the punitive attitude towards children is transformed into a positive reward.

The report’s presentation occurred in the framework of the 51st session of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, organized over May 25 – June 12, focused on the examination of reports submitted by six countries (Bangladesh, France, Mauritania, Sweden, Nigeria and Romania).

The report presents the progress made by Romania in the field of implementation of the UN Convention in this field, over 2003-2009.
June 5 report is the fifth Romania presents to the UN relevant committee.

Through the ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1990, Romania pledged to send at regular intervals to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child reports on the adopted measures aimed at the implementation of the rights recognized by this Convention, as well as progress achieved in these rights being put into use.