Bolivia’s Children’s Parliament: Bringing Participation to the National Stage

This article shares the experience of the Bolivian Children’s Parliament. According to the article this model has joined children, adolescents, and governmental and non-governmental institutions in realising children’s right to participate in issues that affect their lives at a national level.

The article explains that The Convention on the Rights of the Child establishes four distinct areas of children’s rights: survival, development, protection, and participation. Among these rights, the first three areas are most often addressed by legislation and the establishment of Children’s Protection offices, but the fourth area, participation, is often forgotten. The Children’s Parliament experience in Bolivia brings national attention to children’s right to participate. The participation of children and adolescents in the Children’s Parliament helps to create the conditions through which they can develop their own judgment and become better positioned to make valuable contributions to society.

The child representatives are elected by their peers in local elections. An effort is made to ensure that the child representatives come from diverse backgrounds. This can present challenges for communicating, so different styles are used to facilitate the process. The representatives may write songs, poetry and short plays about local problems. Based on these, they generate proposals of key themes, which are then translated into preliminary designs for laws that subsequently follow the same legislative processes of the National Congress. The children then symbolically approve them as laws. The main role of the adults involved has been to motivate the children and provide them with potential techniques to stimulate their thinking and working together. In the elections, training and actual Parliament, facilitators help children articulate the issues they would like to take up by inspiring them as well as educating them about the documents and procedures they must know to engage in the parliamentary process.

According to the article, it is clear that the Children’s Parliament members take their role quite seriously. They have demonstrated a desire to protect and call attention to the needs of the most vulnerable populations among them, such as street children, the disabled, and rural indigenous children and adolescents. Much of their focus is on protection issues such as abuse and discrimination. They also address the causes of alcohol and drug abuse. Further, when the Children’s Parliament has undertaken issues that are commonplace on the National Parliament’s agenda, such as job security, economic development, and education, the children offer direct suggestions and clearly address issues of equity.

In 2004, Plan International hired a public relations firm to design a communication strategy to ensure that the Children’s Parliament received press coverage and served as a platform to advocate children’s rights at a broader level. This included radio and television interviews as well as publication of articles about children’s rights previous to, and since, the establishment of the Children’s Parliament. During the parliament session, several of the children’s Representatives made extensive media visits accompanied by Plan International’s Country Director which resulted in significant media coverage. This created a new awareness among the general public of children’s rights and potential. According to the article, the communication strategy significantly contributed to securing the image of the Children’s Parliament as a positive initiative in training the next generation of leaders. The article mentions that "a professionally managed communication strategy was sorely missed in 2005 and it should be reinstated in the planning and implementation of future Children’s Parliaments."

The article concludes that the Children’s Parliament offers a “practice ground” for children to learn about the mechanisms of democratic institutions and gain understanding and respect for their peers throughout the country. It creates opportunities for organisations to work within the democratic process with children around the theme of their participation in issues that affect their lives, and is also a learning experience for the adults involved. These activities help to begin to establish a social space for children to be heard, participate actively and demonstrate their abilities and potential as citizens.