Parliament Adopts Laws on Children's Protection and Rights

By E.OYUNDARI

The revised Law on Children's Rights and the Law on Child Protection were adopted just before the Lunar New Year. MP S.Odontuya, leader of the parliamentary lobby to support child and family development and led the working group to develop the amendments, spoke to Unuudur Newspaper about the newly adopted changes.

It took a great amount of time to gather the vast amount of research on the field, and to develop the amendments to the laws on child protection and children's rights. Now, finally, the goal has been fulfilled and the changes have been adopted. What are the main objectives of the amendments? Can you please give a brief overview of them ?

The revised versions of the law on children's rights and law on child protection has been successfully ratified by the parliament. The law on protecting children's rights was initially adopted in 1996, and the two new laws were created on the 20th anniversary of the first law on child rights in Mongolia, which is a special occasion. With adoption of the laws, a national system has been created to provide children's rights throughout Mongolia. Secondly, legal arrangements have determined how to resolve issues, such as how to protect a child if it has been exposed to violence, or if its rights have been abused, and how to prevent domestic abuse. Thirdly, public awareness of children's rights and child protection will be improved with the new laws.

Adopting a law is one issue, but enforcing it is another more complicated issue. How are you planning to provide the implementation of these new laws, as it is a common phenomenon in Mongolia that adopted laws just stay valid on paper and are not implemented properly?

I completely agree that we cannot leave behind the issue of proper enforcement of the law after adopting it. In order to implement these laws, we still have to approve around 20 relevant rules, regulations, and standards, which must be developed and planned in cooperation with affiliated ministries, the Child and Family Development Center, and governmental agencies.

We are carrying out financial estimations for what is required in implementing the laws, with the assistance of international experts. The laws can be properly implemented if 3.2 to 3.5 billion MNT is allotted annually from the state budget. This will be carried out in two phases. Financing for the implementation of these laws will be resolved in 2017 and 2018.

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