Thought I'd write this while the girls are on a coach tour of 'Nyon and the Countryside' - so that they can see more of Geneva than the inside of a conference room! Although it's only 4 days into the ILC today was our last day. Article 4 was adopted last night and was not watered down as we had feared. Lilibeth was at the ILC early yesterday and gave us the bad news that amendments had been proposed to Article 4 that would give much less protection to children and, effectively, deny child domestic workers their right to education. Article 4 (in the convention) and Paragraph 4 (in the recommendation) are the only places where children are mentioned in the standards. They have become a rallying cry for us, we have been asking delegates whether they support them, we've been explaining the protection they would give children. We've even all learnt how to say Article 4 Paragraph 4 in Swahili (kifungoo channe, kidoko channe - phonetical spelling of course!).
The girls were quite dispondent when Lilibeth explained about the amendments, it hit them hard. But they forced themselves to carry on lobbying for them and we found that, actually, when they mentioned the proposed amendments, delegates sat up and listened a bit more closely, rifled through their papers and were very supportive of Article 4. It worked in our favour...children were on the agenda.
We had a very positive 'round up' session in the grounds of the UN yesterday (when we sit in a circle and one-by-one talk about what was good that day, what was bad and what worked - in terms of lobbying). Our round up seemed to show that we'd all seen the drafting process at work. It's hard to feel you know what is going on at the ILC when legislation is being drafted. The drafting process is VERY far removed from all the children's champions' lives. Especially Angelina who can't yet read and write. But yesterday we were involved in the process - because we cared about the impact of some words being removed from a couple of sentences we had all got to know quite well!!
We won't be around for the discussion on Paragraph 4 but I hope that our impact on the first 4 days will continue in the minds of the delegates when it comes to Paragraph 4...Audrey will still be here so she'll have to fight for all of us!
Helen
The girls were quite dispondent when Lilibeth explained about the amendments, it hit them hard. But they forced themselves to carry on lobbying for them and we found that, actually, when they mentioned the proposed amendments, delegates sat up and listened a bit more closely, rifled through their papers and were very supportive of Article 4. It worked in our favour...children were on the agenda.
We had a very positive 'round up' session in the grounds of the UN yesterday (when we sit in a circle and one-by-one talk about what was good that day, what was bad and what worked - in terms of lobbying). Our round up seemed to show that we'd all seen the drafting process at work. It's hard to feel you know what is going on at the ILC when legislation is being drafted. The drafting process is VERY far removed from all the children's champions' lives. Especially Angelina who can't yet read and write. But yesterday we were involved in the process - because we cared about the impact of some words being removed from a couple of sentences we had all got to know quite well!!
We won't be around for the discussion on Paragraph 4 but I hope that our impact on the first 4 days will continue in the minds of the delegates when it comes to Paragraph 4...Audrey will still be here so she'll have to fight for all of us!
Helen
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