Commissioner for children’s rights touted

A proposed EU strategy on the rights of the child, published this week, will be ineffective without making a commissioner responsible for children's rights, according to non-governmental organisations.

The Commission plans to set up an EU-wide hotline by the end of this year to help trace missing and sexually exploited children. It also wants to help banks block and trace credit cards used to buy sexual images of children.

Franco Frattini, European commissioner for freedom, justice and security, said he would make separate proposals to allow the exchange of information on child sex offenders.

The Commission says it wants to ensure all EU policies respect children's rights as laid down in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. It proposes setting up a co-ordinator to make children's rights "more visible" and to ensure "co-ordination of the strategy with all services concerned". NGOs fear that such a co-ordinator would lack political teeth.

"I am mostly concerned that it will become a document with not enough resources or structure to oversee the implementation," said Olivia Lind of Save the Children. She added: "A commissioner would be able to sit in a DG [Commission directorate-general] with a political mandate and look into other DGs, tell them what to do and monitor their policies."

"There should be a co-ordinator as well but a commissioner might have the seniority required to develop an action plan," said Jane Backhurst of World Vision.

A proposed EU strategy on the rights of the child, published this week, will be ineffective without making a commissioner responsible for children's rights, according to non-governmental organisations.