CRIA - Child Rights in Action
Along with people from many parts of the world, young Australians, including First Nation people, have been participating in CATS ((Children as Actors for Transforming Society) and CRIA (Child Rights in Action). It has been an honour to be on the development teams for these international forums and a delight to see the enthusiastic participation and engagement of our young Australians and their open sharing of thoughts, observations and ideas.

Maheen was ten years old when she participated in CRIA in Europe two year ago and with two people from other countries presented their knowledge and understanding of Child Labour at this international forum. It was an honour to see this and other young Australians share their thoughts about big ideas and their own cultural traditions also.

Following is an article Maheen wrote about a campaign she is working on and sent to me recently.

Child Labour

CRIA (Child Rights in Action), or formerly known as CATS (Children as Actors for Transforming Society) is an event held each year with aspiring themes. Due to the current circumstances CRIA has been held online this year but it has not stopped many people joining and being inspired in many ways. This year’s theme was Gender Equality and many inspiring people were there. I enjoy going to and participating in CRIA because Children’s voice is extremely valued and we talk about really important issues and everyone gets a turn to speak. I really like how it revolves around Korczak’s sayings of the importance and value of a child. Together at CRIA, people from all over the world join and we make amazing things possible!

This year a few children are starting to develop their own campaigns. I have decided to focus my campaign on the issue Child Labor. Child Labor is a large problem in the world. It is where children are forced to hard and continuous labor (work) in terrible and unsafe circumstances. They also miss out on the chance of getting an education in their life. Child labor refers to any child under 12 doing work in these circumstances.

Child labor is a large problem in the world, and even though it’ll be hard to completely stop it there are ways we can decrease it. They include;

Spreading an awareness (like this article), social media posts, webinars
Supporting organisations that work to help endChild Labor
Trying our best to not buy products from companies that do support Child Labor, and using alternatives to them.

                                                                                              Maheen Yawari

If you have had any experiences about Child Labour are interested in finding more about it and/or would like to join Maheen’s campaign, please send your name and email and any questions you have about this by clicking here.