EU Children's Rights Strategy 2021-2024

The consultation on the forthcoming EU Children’s Rights Strategy 2021-2024 offers us an opportunity to reflect on how the EU uses its existing powers to comply with its twin obligations to ensure a high level of public health protection and promote children’s rights in all its policies.

Eurocare works to raise awareness of the impact of commercial advertising and marketing - particularly for alcohol as a harmful goods, services and brands - to which children are exposed in Europe and beyond, and to promote its regulation and effective enforcement.

SUMMARY OF OUR RECOMMENDATIONS. The EU should:
·       adopt an evidence-led, child rights-based approach to harmful marketing
·       regulate harmful marketing strictly to protect all children (0-18 years) from its impact
·       entrust the regulation of harmful marketing to DG Health (not other Commission DGs)
·       adopt EU-wide legally binding provisions to protect children from exposure to all forms of harmful marketing (recognising that Codes of Conduct do not work)  

More specifically: to protect children, the EU should:
·       ban all harmful marketing on broadcast media between 6am and 11pm
·       ban all online harmful marketing
·       ensure the GDPR is effectively enforced throughout the EU to protect children's personal data
·       ban harmful marketing in all print media which are not adult-only publications
·       ban harmful sponsorship of sports and other events with a cross-border appeal which are not adult-only events
·       prevent the use of marketing techniques appealing to children on packaging  

Children’s rights are the human rights of all those below the age of 18. According to the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child, every child in the world is entitled to the same set of civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights – irrespective of their ethnicity, gender, religion, language, abilities, migration status, sexual orientation or any other status.

The protection of children’s rights is an objective of the European Union, it is a guiding principle for the action of the EU institutions and bodies, and for the EU Member States. The EU strategy on children’s rights will provide the framework for EU action to better promote and protect children’s rights. It will contain a set of measures for the EU to implement, addressing among others:
the rights of the most vulnerable children
children’s rights in the digital age
the prevention of and fight against violence
the promotion of child-friendly justice.  

The strategy will provide the policy framework for EU action on children’s rights. It will present the actions (legislative, policy, funding etc.) at EU level that contribute to the protection of the rights of the child, both internally and in its external action.

The strategy will address persisting and emerging challenges to children’s rights, including in the context of the current Covid-19 pandemic, and ensure synergies with relevant policy developments – both recent and in the pipeline. The strategy will include a list of actions for the Commission to implement in the course of the current mandate. It will also include recommendations for actions by other EU institutions and bodies, Member States and stakeholders.

For more information see: https://ec.europa.eu/info/law/better-regulation/have-your-say/initiatives/12454-Delivering-for-child...