Child Rights and You (CRY) has started its election campaign — not for votes but to keep child rights on the agenda of political parties.

The CRY (NGO) has been communicating with politicians across the country to ensure that issues related to children do not slip off their and their parties’ radar.

“We find that despite the efforts of child rights organisations, political parties continue to ignore children and the issues affecting them. So we are now knocking on the doors of the candidates to remind them that children should not be neglected,” said education activist and CRY director Ila Hukku.

The NGO recently handed over its Child Rights Manifesto, which lists issues affecting children’s lives in India, to CPM state secretary Biman Bose, CPM candidate Mohammad Salim and CPI state secretary and central secretariat member Manju Kumar Majumder.

CRY also plans to hand over the manifesto to external affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee and CPM politburo member Sitaram Yechury.

According to representatives of the NGO, while many candidates pointed out that their parties’ manifestos contained points from the CRY document, in the past the issues have seldom been taken up after polls.

Mohammad Salim promised the representatives that the issues would feature in the CPM’s internal debates after the elections and in the common minimum programme if the party comes to power.

The Child Rights Manifesto seeks an increase in government expenditure on children — specifically a hike in expenditure on education to 10 per cent and on health to seven per cent of the GDP.

It calls for redrafting of the Right to Education Bill (Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008) and the revision of the National Policy for Children (1974).

“We are reminding people that one-fourth of the country — as many as 400 million citizens — will not vote this election because they are below 18. We, the adults, should ensure that their interests do not slip off the political radar,” said Dipankar Mazumdar, the director (youth and development support) of CRY.


[source- [[The Telegraph]], Thursday , May 7 , 2009]