By Astou Jawara
ChildFund The Gambia, the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW), together with partners, on recently convened a consultative forum on the ‘Review of the Children’s Act 2005′, geared towards developing data collection tools for the Act.
Speaking at the event, the ChildFund’s Country Director, Ms. Musu Kuta Komma said the Ministry of Women, Children and Social Welfare (MoWCSW) is coordinating and leading the initiative and going through the process. She reported that ChildFund-The Gambia and many other child development and protection stakeholders felt the need to include the voices of children in reviewing children’s instruments or policies, noting it could never be complete without hearing their voices. Madam Komma stated this was also another sub-milestone that they thought was very important for them to be able to accomplish the task of reviewing their Children’s Act as a nation.
In doing so, it’s important for them to meet as technical people to do justice first in preparing themselves as they consult children, she told the audience. She had said that they were of the view that once they were able to consult children, their views and opinions are heard and included in the national instrument, it would be easier for them to be able to roll out and socialize the instrument, and the children themselves would play a key stake in the rolling and implementation of the revised Act that was about to be produced after that process.
The Country Director reasoned that’s why they felt the need to collaborate with partners to really look at the tools and revise all the instruments that they are going to use to consult and engage the children with.
Mr. Omar Mbakeh, Deputy Director of Children Affairs at the Ministry informed that the convergence has been a process that had been taking place for a very long time. He stressed that child protection issues and their welfare in the Gambia is a priority for government and everybody; “so, therefore, we need to ensure as a government, stakeholders, partners, individuals and as communities their welfare and protection is looked at”.
“We have seen a lot of things happening to children and, as a result, a lot of things are emerging. So, the stakeholders, through consultation, felt that it’s important we review the Act,” the Deputy Director went on. He also stated that reviewing the Act means it had to be consultative because government couldn’t do it all alone; so they decided to bring on board all the stakeholders, namely the government, development partners, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) as well as the communities.
Saying the process has been in phases, he told the forum the first phase was through a desk review in which they recruited the services of a lead facilitator who would work with her team and all the stakeholders, including government, to make sure that the review is done appropriately.
The man responsible for Children’s Affairs at the Ministry of Children continued to say, the 2nd Phase–stakeholders’ consultation– has to do with going around the country to meet with child protection actors across the regions and other government agencies to dialogue with them about the welfare and protection of children in this country; and how far they have they gone in successfully implementing the policies that govern the children in this country.
Director Mbakeh disclosed the other phase that they want to introduce is to dialogue with the children because all that “we are doing is for them, so nothing goes for children without their involvement and consent as that would help us to know those issues that are affecting them”.
