Children’s rights are recognized and prioritized
Adolescents and children should be recognized by society and the Government as rights holders and prioritized in public policies and budgets.
Challenges
Peru was one of the first countries to ratify the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) in August 1990. Since then, Peru has made significant progress in developing policies and a legal framework, as well as increasing the public budget, to contribute to guaranteeing the rights of children and adolescents. The proportion of children and adolescents living in poverty fell by 19 percentage points between 2007 (50.9 per cent) and 2014 (31.6 per cent). Public spending on children and adolescents increased by 20 per cent between 2013 (S/. 23.6 billion) and 2015 (S/. 28.3 billion), representing 4.6 per cent of the GDP.
While this investment is significant, it is limited by comparison to other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, particularly in the right to protection. In 2015, Peru only invested 0.9 per cent (S/. 246 million) of all public spending on children in protection.
There is also the need to improve society’s recognition of adolescents as rights holders and a great opportunity for the development of their communities and the country. For example, 34 per cent of mentions related to adolescents in print media between 2012 and 2014 refer to them as violators of the law, demonstrating persistent negative stereotypes about young people.
Solutions
To remove these barriers, UNICEF works with the Government and civil society partners to strengthen public management capacities with a focus on the rights of children and adolescents, gender and interculturality; public management instruments to support regional and local governments to prioritize children and adolescents, plan and implement budgets for children and adolescents, and, if necessary, mobilize additional public resources; and capacities of national, regional and local coordination spaces so that the recommendations of human rights bodies, such as the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), and the opinions of citizens are considered in the design and implementation of public policies.
The goal of these actions is to promote public management models that improve the quality of life of children and adolescents, contributing to their rights being recognized and prioritized by the government.
In this work, the media and the private sector play a key role. UNICEF partners with them to build initiatives to promote society’s recognition of the rights of children and adolescents
Resources
- Vídeo: What adolescents say? - Ucayali (Spanish)
- Vídeo: What adolescents say? - Loreto (Spanish)
- Vídeo: What adolescents say? - Carabayllo (Spanish)
