Africa-Press – Angola. The First Lady of Angola, Ana Dias Lourenço, highlighted on Wednesday, in Luanda, the strategic efforts of the government in implementing child protection policies, as a fundamental pillar for the development of a prosperous country and a society based on values.
Speaking at the National Children’s Forum, which took place under the motto “Municipalization of the 11 Commitments, Protected Children, Strengthened Nation”, Ana Dias Lourenço stated that constitutional rights and the concern of the Angolan authorities for the rights of children led to the adoption of the 11 commitments for children in 2007.
With this measure, the First Lady said, laws were created and public policies formulated with the formal objective of protecting and promoting the rights of children.
Ana Lourenço added that the adoption of international protocols and conventions by the Angolan government reflects the national commitment to aligning child protection policies with international standards, citing the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the African Charter on Rights and Welfare, among other agreements.
The First Lady stressed that child protection policies extend to all forms of abandonment, discrimination, violence, oppression, sexual abuse and exploitation, and that children have the right to education, health, identity, food, leisure and decent housing.
She explained that the actions that are being developed in favor of children shape the present and build a fairer and healthier future and societies.
According to Ana Dias Lourenço, Angolans, like other peoples of the world, see children as the future, the hope for a better world.
She considered the 19th Children’s Forum a privileged space to highlight the power of dialogue, collaboration and firm determination to build a more peaceful and prosperous future for the children of Angola and the African continent.
The First Lady highlighted the need to effectively and pragmatically implement the 11 commitments at municipal level, to strengthen action where children grow and develop and that the 11 commitments refer to all of the rights of children, including civil rights and liberties, environmental rights, basic care, health and well-being, education, leisure and social and criminal protection measures.
These commitments constitute a framework for intervention in the area of child protection, which need to be assumed by everyone. “A Nation that protects its children not only strengthens its present, but also guarantees a dignified, fair and sustainable future”, the First Lady said.
Ana Lourenço considered the situation of vulnerability due to poor access to health and education, domestic violence and sexual abuse, evasion of paternity, child labor and early pregnancy as challenges to be overcome.
Among the advances, the First Lady pointed out a total of 3,301 existing health posts, of which 97.4 directly benefited children; in the area of birth registration, 235,958 children, aged zero to 13, were registered in December 2023, and nearly 773,688 children received their birth document by the end of the first quarter of 2025.
Ana Lourenço recalled the fact that the school meal program benefited, in the 2023/2024 school year, more than one million 51 thousand and 592 primary school children.
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