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CHILDREN’S CODE ACT OF 2022
Posted by Letswalo L Marobane on 18 January 2024, 10:55 SAST
SC financially supported the Zambian Law Development Commission (ZLDC) to undertake consultations with communities and traditional leaders and conducted joint advocacy activities with the Joining Forces Alliance, which led to all six major international organisations working in the child rights sector in Zambia to prioritise advocacy on the Children’s Code Bill. SC joined forces with the National Child Rights Forum (NCRF) to lobby representatives of Italy, France, Ireland, Japan, Germany, Canada, Slovenia, Sweden, and Slovakia to urge the Zambian Government to adopt improved child legislation while building the advocacy capacity of local partners (e.g., NCRF).
Through NCRF, SC supported the Zambia Civic Education Association (ZCEA) to strengthen their coordination role and improve their capacity to engage with charterand treaty-based human rights bodies to hold the government accountable based on CSO reports and call on the need to codify child legislation in Zambia. SC also supported children to advocate for CHILDREN’S CODE ACT OF 2022 the Act and related legal changes at the National Children’s Summit in November 2019, with the United Nations Special Representative for Zambia in Geneva, through a communique to the Zambian Government, and at several occasions in 2021 and 2022.
SC then sent a letter to the First Lady of Zambia to petition for her support. A few weeks after she handed the letter to then President Edgar Lungu (served from January 2015 until August 2021), SC was invited to sit on the Governmental Technical Working Group that was reviewing the Children’s Code Bill. SC generated political commitments from aspiring candidates prior to the 2021 Zambian general election to support the enactment of the Bill once elected into office, and signed social contracts with children and candidates. On 23 July 2022, SC organised an orientation meeting for Members of the Zambian Parliament on the contents of the Bill and how to mobilise support to ensure it garners enough support to be enacted into law.
