Malawi govt calls for unity in fighting for children rights
The Malawi Government has asked stakeholders in children affairs to come together and share knowledge and experiences to ensure effective realisation of children’s rights.
Willard Manjolo, an official in the Ministry of Children Rights in the Ministry of Gender, Children and Community Development said this last week Friday in Blantyre during a closing ceremony of a two-day training workshop for 30 police prosecutors and magistrates.
The training workshop was organised by Malawi Human Rights Commission (MHRC) and the National Child Justice Forum with funding from Plan Malawi and aimed at orienting magistrates and prosecutors on the recently gazetted Child Care, Protection and Justice (CCPJ) Act 2010.
“The more we share information the more we realise what this Act is all about,” said Manjolo.
“This Act requires collective effort to be fully implemented; the Act urges all of us to come together and fight for the welfare and rights of children. The police, we social welfare people, NGOs, MHRC and everybody need to come in,” he said.
Manjolo said when he sat in the Special Law Commission which reviewed the abandoned Children and Young Persons Act in order to come up with the CCPJ, there was a strong recommendation for the Committee to come up with an implementable Act.
He, however, said although the Act was implementable resources remained a big challenge and called on all stakeholders to pull resources together to ensure the Act was truly implemented.
The training workshop was facilitated by Supreme Court Judge Edward Twea, Manjolo and Assistant Commissioner of Police, Counsel Barbara Mchenga.
Twea took time to present on ‘An overview of CCPJ; Age determination and legal representation of Children; Children in Conflict with the Law; Child Justice Court and Child Case Review Board.’
On the other hand, Manjolo presented on Children in contact with the Law focussing on guardianship, fosterage, support by Local Authorities and Protection of Children from undesirable practices.
Mchenga tackled a topic on Children in conflict with the Law by focusing on pre-trial issues and Police Victim Support Units (VSU).
In his closing remarks, MHRC director of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights Grant Kankhulungo thanked Plan Malawi for the financial injection which enabled facilitation of the workshop.
Kankhulungo also thanked Judge Twea and other presenters for sparing their time and share knowledge and experiences with the 30 participants.
On his part, Twea urged participants to use the knowledge gained in all sectors of life to ensure that children rights are promoted, protected and realised.
This was a second training workshop after a similar one held in Salima targeting participants from the Central Region of Malawi. The final training workshop targeting participants from Eastern and Northern Regions is slated end June.
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