Children issues should be given importance in upcoming elections: CRY

New Delhi: Political parties should give more weight to issues relating to children - who account for one-third of the country’s population - in their manifestos for the upcoming General Elections, says rights group Child Rights and You (CRY). The NGO in its election advocacy campaign “Vote for Child Rights”, launched recently, also pushed for a separate section on children in the manifestos. [caption id=“attachment_1234411” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Representational image. Reuters[/caption] “Though children and their issues find a place in the party manifestos, they received less than 15 percentage of share in the entire party manifestos,” says the report ‘Status and Trend in Child Rights in India- an overview of the past decade’. The report, based on the analysis of 10 political party manifestos for the 2009 elections, is part of Child Right Manifesto created by CRY which details the aspirations of children across 18 states in the country. The report contains analysis on the country’s performance on key child rights indicators including the four rights - of survival, development, protection and participation. “We believe that the Vote for Child Rights campaign is our way of ensuring that there is political will behind our justified demand to protect Child Rights,” says Puja Marwaha, CEO of CRY. Slamming political parties for failing to adequately represent children and their rights, the report points out that share of space for children’s issues ranges from 5 to 13 per cent across parties. The report concluded that it was clearly not the number of words and space invested in a document which matters, but rather the understanding and perspective on the issues confronting children today which is more important. “The focus of parties as appearing in their 2009 ‘promise document’ is too general and rather broad,” says the report. “Glaring gaps” have been pointed out in the manner in which children issues are put in the Party Manifestos. PTI