The Minister for Justice and Social Welfare, Ronald Warsal is calling on all parents in Vanuatu to place special emphasizes on their dialect when talking to their children this week.
Children’s Day is on 24 July and the theme for this year’s activities is ‘Supporting Children’s Education from Class One’. Vanuatu is celebrating a weeklong Children Day activity beginning from yesterday with various activities planned in schools and communities.
When officially declaring the opening of Children’s Week activities, Mr Warsal said one of the special emphasis for this week is to ensure children appreciate their right to learn their original dialect or mother-tongue.
“Many children grew up in urban centers and were accustomed to speaking only in the national language Bislama and never had the opportunity to learn their parent’s dialect“, he said.
Inter-marriage is also a main factor, particularly when parents speak two distinct dialects making it difficult to speak one’s respective mother-tongue at home.
Minister Warsal says children’s right to be taught their parents ancestral language is a fundamental right under the responsibility of parents.
The Minister also appealed to organizers of this week’s activities to include programs for children with special needs or the vulnerable group.
He said children week’s activities should be a reminder to all that children should be afforded the necessary protection and assistance at home, in the communities and in their respective schools. “They should grow up in a family environment, in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding,”
“We should also be reminded that children have a right to good health by way of receiving the right and healthy food, and adequate health facility when they are sick”, he said.
Education for children is also a fundamental right the minister said it is therefore the responsibility of the government as well as parents to ensure children are given that right to education.
The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the most rapidly and widely ratified international human rights treaty in history. The Convention changed the way children are viewed and treated – i.e., as human beings with a distinct set of rights instead of as passive objects of care and charity.
The unprecedented acceptance of the Convention clearly shows a wide global commitment to advancing children’s rights.
According to UNICEF, there is much to celebrate as we mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention, from declining infant mortality to rising school enrolment, but this historic milestone must also serve as an urgent reminder that much remains to be done. Too many children still do not enjoy their full rights on par with their peers.
It says business as usual is not enough to make the vision of the Convention a reality for all children. The world needs new ideas and approaches, and the Convention must become a guiding document for every human being in every nation.
Vanuatu parliament ratified the Convention on the Rights of Children in September 1992.