Thailand has made lots of progress in advancing the rights of children but far more can be done to build a "child friendly society", the United Nations said yesterday.
Bundling up: A boy zips up his classmate’s jacket before class at Wat Samian Naree School in Bangkok. Many residents have donned warm clothes as the cool season sets in. Pattarapong Chatpattarasill
The call was made at the United Nations Conference Centre where a function was held to mark yesterday's International Children's Rights Day and to celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
United Nations Resident Coordinator Luc Stevens and Unicef Thailand Representative Bijaya Rajbhandar told the conference that Thailand has done a lot to improve children's rights, particularly in the fields of health and primary education. However, much work remains to be done in four key fields to build a truly "child friendly society".
These fields include: Making people see that the child is not seen as property of the family but that the community, society and the state has a role to play in ensuring their welfare; government financial support for hospital or health care at the tambon and local levels; eliminating unequal education by lifting and standardising education quality; protecting children from inappropriate media that contains violence and erotic content, including those contained in popular soap operas on TV; and giving children a voice and getting them to participate in making decisions about their own futures.
Pol Gen Adul Saengsingkaew, the Social Development and Human Security Minister, represented the Thai government at the function.
Thailand was among the 194 countries that ratified the CRC in February 1992 in order to guarantee fundamental rights to children.
Mr Rajbhandar stressed that the voice of children must be "explicitly recognised" and their rights must be equal to others.
Pol Gen Adul also assured the conference, which was also attended by children from Thailand's four regions, that every child born in Thailand has the right to access education even if they belong to minority groups and are undergoing nationality verification.
Meanwhile, the UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, and the Asia-Pacific Refugee Rights Network, said many children in the Asia-Pacific region continue to be locked in immigration detention, a practice that, even for very short periods of time, has severe negative effects on children's physical and mental health.
Alistair Boulton, the Assistant Regional Representative for Protection at the UNHCR's Regional Office in Bangkok, said that the CRC clearly states that detention of children on the basis of their, or their parents, immigration status is a child rights violation.
"First and foremost, children are children and they should be treated as such," he said.