Coinciding with the Universal Children’s Day, today the president of the Catalan Government, Artur Mas, presided over the presentation of the Catalan National Council for Children and Teenagers.

 

Today will be the 25^th anniversary since the Convention on the Rights of the Child was adopted by the UN and the CNIAC used the opportunity to celebrate its first meeting in the Palau de Pedralbes. The initial meeting was attended by 43 youths from the territorial councils of Catalonia along with the Minister of Social Welfare and Family, Neus Munté, and the mayors of 23 municipalities with infancy councils.

 

With this body, the Government of Catalonia aims to encourage the participation and the promotion of children’s rights to express their opinion and reflects several articles found in the Convention on the Rights of the Child adopted by United Nations General Assembly, signed in November 1989.

 

 

The establishment of the Catalan National Council for Children and Teenagers (CNIAC) is enshrined under Articles 27 and 34 of Act 14/2010, of May 27th, on the Rights and Opportunities of Children and Teenagers in Catalonia put in place to boosts the right of children and teenagers in Catalonia to have their views heard to and taken into account. It is also one of the measures included in the Pact for Children in Catalonia launched by the Government and signed by more than seventy associations, institutional players and political parties, to put children and teenagers at the centre of the country’s policies. It is a consultative and participatory organ, affiliated to Catalonia's Ministry of Social Welfare and Family, aimed at representing the interests of Catalonia’s children and teenagers, contributing proposals to the competent bodies and offering opinions on proposals that affect children.