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Sabri: The Childhood Protection Agency Project Establishes a New Institutional Framework
The House of Representatives approved, during a legislative session last night, the draft law No. 29.24 concerning the establishment of the National Childhood Protection Agency, along with its affiliated childhood protection centers and social care institutions for children, with the approval of 61 members and opposition from 23 others.
State Secretary for Employment, Hicham Sabri, emphasized while presenting the draft law that this text establishes a new institutional protection system that unifies the stakeholders in the field of childhood protection. It adopts an approach aimed at achieving alignment and optimizing human and material resources, as well as addressing the legal and practical challenges faced in this area.
Sabri clarified that one of the key innovations in the project is the establishment of a national agency specifically for childhood protection, granting it exclusive competencies, along with necessary resources and capabilities. The agency’s structure will be enhanced with management and decision-making mechanisms that involve various relevant sectors and bodies.
The government official noted that the agency’s roles are reinforced through its direct supervision of childhood protection centers, and the specification of its competencies related to social care institutions for children, particularly in areas of licensing, approval of director appointments, monitoring, and the oversight of children’s situations, while establishing accountability.
Sabri pointed out that the project stipulates the adoption of two systems within childhood protection centers. The first is a controlled system in which residents benefit from various services within the center and are only allowed to leave under strict legal conditions. The second is an open system that allows beneficiaries to participate in activities both inside and outside the center, identifying specific categories of children eligible for each system, including children in conflict with the law, those referred from prisons, children in difficult situations, abandoned children, and victims of offenses and crimes.
According to the State Secretary, the project adopts a rights-based approach focusing on prevention rather than punishment and emphasizes intensive educational and training programs, with the establishment of mechanisms for monitoring after leaving protection centers, aiming to ensure the reintegration of children into their family, social, and economic environments through income-generating personal or professional projects.
The majority parties praised the social and humanitarian dimensions that this legislative text embodies, especially in the context of national and international challenges related to protecting children from various forms of vulnerability, exploitation, violence, and neglect.
The majority asserted that the project represents an important legal framework for addressing the issues faced by institutional childhood protection, highlighting legislative gaps related to childhood protection centers, the multiplicity of stakeholders, and the difficulties stemming from the lack of consideration for the specificities of each category, as well as inadequate institutional coordination.
They also emphasized the importance of implementing integrated programs to care for the residents of childhood protection centers, enhancing coordination with public administrations, local communities, public bodies, civil society associations, and national and international entities to ensure the effectiveness and integration of interventions.
Conversely, opposition parties argued that childhood protection remains primarily a government responsibility and requires the establishment of effective and integrated public policies that ensure consistency among the interventions of various sectors.
The opposition recognized shortcomings in public policies directed at children, asserting that addressing these issues should not be through the establishment of a new agency but rather through the implementation of effective preventive policies assigned to responsible political actors for development, activation, and follow-up.
Additionally, they argued that the project does not address the root causes of vulnerability experienced by children, concentrating instead on intervention after harm has occurred, rather than relying on preventive policies based on social and spatial justice. They criticized what they described as a lack of participatory approach in drafting the text, noting the exclusion of those directly affected, particularly the Child Parliament.
