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MEP Criticises European Parliament report on the rights of the Child

16 January 2008

Baroness Nicholson MEP today set out her formal explanation for her vote against the European Parliaments report entitled ‘Towards an EU strategy on the rights of the child’.  The MEP who has been a long term campaigner on children’s rights and is the co-founder alongside the children’s author J. K. Rowling, of the Children’s High Level Group which works to ensure that UN minimum standards for the care of children.

Baroness Nicholson MEP written explanation of her vote states:

“While the Treaty of Lisbon sets the promotion of children’s rights as a broad EU objective, it does not create new legislative powers for this purpose. I believe that any movement in this field should be within the existing legal framework.”

“There are significant areas in this report which step outside these boundaries. Nor is the report offering feasible solutions to children’s problems. One example is institutionalised care. We have voted to restrict this to a temporary measure. Yet hundreds of thousands of children throughout Europe are born with or acquire such significant physical or intellectual handicaps that it is a medical or social necessity for them to have long-term institutional care.”

“A quadriplegic, spina bifida or hydrocephalus afflicted child can have a life of dignity and happiness with expert staff care and family visits. Strengthening the system is the priority, and not its abolition.”

“We in Europe are bound to follow the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This report distorts several important messages contained in the Convention. With regret, therefore, I found myself unable to support this report, though I share the concern for children’s welfare that its supporters expressed.”

END