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3.4 Advocacy
The SOS worldwide call to action is to provide ‘A loving home for every child’. We can significantly increase the impact of our work if we share our knowledge and insights regarding the needs of these vulnerable children and the best way to protect their rights. As a federation with over 70 years’ experience in keeping families together and alternative family-based care for children, SOS Children’s Villages is increasingly vocal in the field of the international rights of the child, with representatives at the United Nations in New York and Geneva and the European Union (EU) in Brussels. As a champion of children who run the risk of losing or who have already lost their parental care, we speak out at the regional, national and international levels to defend their rights. Our work also focuses on empowering children and young people, and we promote their participation in decisions that affect their lives.
With the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the UN Guidelines for Alternative Care for Children as our main points of reference, we hold our governments and societies to account for ensuring children’s rights are respected and that the specific needs of each child are met. Our work is connected and contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) as established in our federation’s International Strategy 2030. In the Netherlands, SOS Children’s Villages profiles itself increasingly prominent in the field of humanitarian aid and child development, and recently as a national actor in youth care (Simba Family Care), and a champion of the rights of the child.
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3.4.1 ADVOCACY ACTIVITIES IN 2020
A summary of our main activities.
In 2020, SOS Children’s Villages International launched a user-friendly version of the UN Resolution – Rights of the Child (2019) with a focus on children without parental care. This version, aimed at children who have lost their
Advocating for keeping families together
One of our main objectives is to ensure that decision-makers understand that investments to make the family stronger can prevent children being separated from their parents unnecessarily. We are part of the NGO Committee on UNICEF: a coalition comprising over 60 social organisations that try and convince governments to invest in programmes that make families stronger, in child-protection systems and the meaningful participation of children.
Advocating for quality care
We advocate for quality alternative care in which the interests of the child are key and the actual care system is not the starting point for action. parental care, has been designed to make the resolution more accessible and ensure that the pledges made by governments become the reality for children and young people. We have widely rolled out the document on our online channels and those of Better Care Network Netherlands, and fellow child rights organisations in the Netherlands.
Unaccompanied Minor Refugees on Greek Islands
At the beginning of 2020, Greece called on EU countries to help take in a small share of the 100,000 refugees in Greece, unaccompanied minors who need extra care that Greece is unable to offer. Children who have to try and survive in appalling conditions on the islands as well as the mainland. SOS Children’s Villages, along with over a hundred former and current politicians, aid organisations, scientists, doctors, representatives of churches and mosques, municipalities and public figures jointly issued an appeal to the Dutch government to evacuate all unaccompanied minors from Greek refugee camps. We also actively spoke out via newsletters, posts on social media and appealed to our supporters to sign the petition #500kinderen (#500children)
In October, SOS Children’s Villages, in association with the coalition The Rights of the Child in Development Cooperation (KROS) organised the webinar Youth, Civic Space and the Right to Speak up. The webinar brought together members of political youth organisations in the Netherlands and young people from the programmes in which the KROS organisations work, including Fatema: a participant in an SOS family-strengthening programme. The young people discussed the importance of youth participation, the obstacles that need to be overcome in order to participate and why it is important to be able to speak freely. Supervisory Board member Mariëlle Bruning provided the introduction and Joel Voordewind (ChristenUnie) shared his thoughts on the discussion. Five key takeaways were used as input for the Principles document of the international Youth@Heart forum organised by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in November 2020.
Volkskrant Opinion Piece In October 2020, we were co-signatory of an opinion piece in the Volkskrant, which benefited from sector-wide support and in which we called on the Dutch government to keep its word and not cut spending on Development Cooperation to cover the costs of the Covid-19 pandemic. Minister Kaag Orphanage Tourism Study Better Care Network Netherlands, in which SOS Children’s Villages has a seat in the steering committee, played an active role in establishing the study commissioned by Minister Kaag into orphanage tourism. Lobbying on this theme shifted up a gear in relation to the #stopweeshuistoerisme campaign, written questions from House member Bente Becker and a private member’s bill by House member Wybren van Haga in 2018, a hearing in the House of Representatives and a debate with Minister Kaag in 2019, in which she promised a study into orphanage tourism. The study and the government response were published in January 2021.
