THEME: NOTHING ABOUT US WITHOUT US:

The 2024 Annual Children’s Advocacy Camp was organized by UCRNN in partnership with
member CSOs working in Buganda, Bunyoro, Busoga and Northern regions of Uganda.
The main focus of the camp was to empower representatives of children from various parts of Uganda with skills and techniques to meaningfully engage and advocate for ending violations of child rights in regard to violence against children, access to education, climate change, sexual and reproductive health rights (SRHR), and other violations against children. In addition, the camp aimed at enhancing the promotion of child safeguarding, empowering the children to claim their rights and be agents of change on key issues affecting them; and ably lobby duty bearers for the effective implementation of child rights laws, and for effective response to SRHR and other rights violations against children and other child safeguarding issues in the country.

The Government of Uganda ratified the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in 1990. Since then, significant progress has been made on the observance of children’s rights to Survival, Development and Protection. The challenge however remains the fulfillment of the right to Participation, which facilitates the realization of other rights. Despite the established legal and policy frameworks that have been designed to provide protective environments for promoting elimination of violations of children in Uganda, children themselves have not experienced full benefits from these processes. Instead, they have limited voice on key issues that affect them such as sexual and reproductive rights, forced marriages, teenage pregnancy, poor parental care, denial of education, child trafficking, and child labour, among others.

Art.12 of the UNCRC obliges State Parties to assure a child who is capable of forming his or her own views the right to express those views freely in all matters affecting the child, the views of a child being given due weight in accordance with the age and maturity of the child.
Because it is the duty of the Government of Uganda to ensure that all children’s rights are respected, protected and promoted, in 2008, UCRNN partnered with the Ministry of Gender, Labor and Social development (MGLSD) and UNICEF to develop the National Child
Participation guide for Uganda to facilitate meaningful participation of children from family through to national, regional and international levels. This was in line with the Ministry’s mandate to provide guidance to stakeholders on promotion and protection of children’s rights.
The camp, therefore, provided an opportunity for UCRNN and member CSOs to expedite the National Child Participation guide for Uganda to facilitate meaningful participation of children on issues that affect them at community, district, national, regional and international levels.