Rress statement: Rights of children

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Rress statement: Rights of children Every 2nd Saturday of January is observed as National Children’s Day in Thailand. To mark this day, Health & Development Networks (HDN), in cooperation with local organizations in Chiang Mai, organized a special monthly NGO Forum on the ‘Rights of children’. This Forum took place on Sunday, 25 January 2009, at The Three king monument in the heart of Chiang Mai.

Speakers at this NGO Forum included: Ms Leehae Mayuor from Volunteers for Children's Development Foundation (VCDF), Ms Moypong Woonna from MAP foundation, Mr Metee Sribhuda from People living with HIV/AIDS Network (upper north), and Mr Kirangkrai Chaimuangdee, Director of The Life Skills Development Foundation (TLSDF). The NGO Forum was moderated by Mr Sansern Dongdee from the Thai-Lahu foundation.

"I am not going to school because my family is poor, I have no home. I used to sell flowers in the city of Chiang Mai. I saw a lot of street children," said Mr Leehea from VCDF. "I knew VCDF because they provide a space for street children to bathe and encourage the children to join their activities. Later on the foundation supported me to go to school. I knew that some street children have to [solicit sex work] with foreigners just because they need money. The big problem for me and my friends is we do not have Thai Identity (ID) card. So without ID card either we cannot go to school or we can go to school but we cannot ensure that we will get a job," he continued.

Mr Metee Sribhuda, was another youth participant from the VCDF. VCDF was founded in 1997 to work with street children and youth who have no caretakers, beggars, children who sell flowers and ethnic minority’s children, who are between 5 and18 years of age. VCDF is also giving them information about sex and HIV/AIDS.

"The Mobile population in Thailand is in critical need of attention," asserted Ms Moypong Woonna. "The children cannot go to schools and the adult population has a range of complex problems related to work and travel," she said. Ms Woonna is studying in Chiang Mai College of Dramatic Arts and is a youth volunteer from the MAP Foundation. The MAP Foundation is currently conducting capacity building with a group of migrants with the aim of the group providing interpretation services in hospitals and playing a role in health education and disease prevention programmes at the migrant work-sites, mainly construction sites. As MAP integrated into the migrant community, the range of issues facing migrant workers became apparent. Activities of MAP then expanded to respond to these issues. In 2002 MAP became a registered Thai foundation, taking the Thai name: "Foundation for the Health and Knowledge of Ethnic Labour," but kept the English name ‘MAP’ due to it’s notoriety with migrant communities.

Mr Metee Sribhuda, one of the speakers, represents the People living with HIV/AIDS Network, Upper North, and works with a team providing support to networks of children affected by HIV/AIDS in eight provinces in northern Thailand. He highlighted ten points related to children affected by HIV at the Forum:

1. Not every child who was born to a mother living with HIV will be born infected with HIV
2. Antiretroviral Treatment (ARV) can increase the CD4 count of children living with HIV
3. Children living with HIV can go to school and live normally
4. No one can get HIV by living with children who have HIV
5. You will not get tuberculosis (TB) from living with children who have HIV and TB co-infection, if those infected children take their anti-TB medicines for more than 2 weeks
6. There is no need to separate children living with HIV from other children or have special or separate schools for them
7. Taking children to get an HIV test is infringement upon the rights of the child if it is done for any reason beyond benefitting their treatment
8. It is not necessary to tell children about their HIV status when they become teenagers just because these children grow up being mortally scared and with a guilt that they are going to spread HIV to others. This can infringe children’s rights and it’s not they way to reduce HIV prevalence
9. It is not necessary to provide special care for children living with HIV that is different from care given to other children for other issues
10. Children affected by HIV have the capacity to learn and to understand like all children; they can participate in finding solutions to their problems

Mr Kirangkrai Chaimuangdee, Director of the Life Skills Development Foundation (TLSDF), emphasized the importance of four basic rights of children, which are:
• Right of Survival
• Right of Development
• Right of Protection
• Right of Participation

Actually it is government’s responsibility to protect the four basic rights of children in Thailand," said Mr Kirangkrai. "but the reality is that it is better if people take ownership to bring the change instead of blindly relying on the government - which is not paying enough attention."

TLSDF is working to protect and promote children’s rights in the rural areas of northern Thailand following basic pillars of children’s rights, which include: The right to non-discrimination, devotion to and maintenance of the best interests of the child, the right to life, survival and development, and the respect for the views of the child.

The monthly NGO Forum concluded with a clear message that the government needs to provide more support to protect and promote the rights of children. Mr Leehea and Ms Moypong stressed the need for the government to help with ID cards as an ID card could help these children gain access to education and enable adults to work legally while reducing travel restrictions.

Mr Metee also added that there is no need to discriminate between various populations of Thailand. Mr Metee said that the support from the government, resource people, donors and policy makers is valuable in intervening to sustainably safeguard the rights of children in Thailand.

For further information contact: Duangkamol Donchaum Tel. 66 0 53449 055 Ext: 101 Email: duangkamol@hdnet.org

Keywords: NGO_Forum/Press_Statement/January_2009