Africa-Press – Seychelles. Various partners and stakeholders gathered earlier this week in a working and consultative session to assess and revise the National Family Policy, a document launched in 2016 which is now overdue for a complete review and assessment.
The family department in the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family organised the two-day consultative session held at the International Conference Centre of Seychelles (ICCS) to coincide with activities to commemorate World Population Day which fell on July 11.
This year the commemoration was under the theme; ‘A world of eight billion: Towards a resilient future for all-harnessing opportunities and ensuring rights and choices for all’.
It is the first step to review the National Family Policy and once the participants’ proposals and inputs have been compiled and taken into consideration, the policy will be edited and presented to the cabinet of ministers for their perusal and final decision.
In remarks to launch the consultation, the director general for research and policy planning in the Ministry of Youth, Sports and Family, Jane Larue, noted that families in Seychelles are facing many social and economic challenges and the Family Policy needs to be updated to be able to address current realities and emerging priorities, something it cannot necessarily do as it is now.
“Since 2016, when the Family Policy was launched, our country and our families have evolved in different ways. The Family Policy needs to align to current realities and emerging priorities,” she remarked, explaining that it is thus imperative to review the policy which is at the core function of the family department.
“The reviewed policy will have to respond to current socio-economic, psychological, educational, judicial, spiritual and even the structural aspects of families in Seychelles,” Mrs Larue stressed.
She added that the family department and its partners need to ensure that the right actions are taken to cater for the well-being of families so they remain a resilient and sustainable source of our development.
The participants’ experiences, skills and inputs will be used alongside existing data from the recent national survey to provide a guideline for the future Family Policy, driven by the national theme; ‘Mon Fanmir, Mon Leker’ (My Family, My heart).
Consultant Andy Jean-Louis led the consultation and he started off with a presentation on the National Family Policy of 2016. He described the factors that were taken into consideration while forming the policy, such as increasing incidence of domestic violence and child abuse, teenage pregnancy, substance abuse and the number of parents in prison.
“At the moment, there is no definition of what constitutes a family in Seychelles,” Mr Jean-Louis noted. He said the policy focuses on the functions and responsibilities fulfilled by family members to meet their individual and collective needs. The five key family functions addressed in the policy are: Bearing or adopting children, socialising and raising children, economic support, care-giving, emotional and spiritual support. He stressed that the vision of the National Family Policy is to have healthy, stable and functional families through the provision of sustainable, affordable and quality living conditions.
A representative of the National Bureau of Statistics gave a presentation to compare this year’s census analysis from that of the one done in 2016. This was followed by a question session where the participants could ask for any necessary clarifications and there was also group presentation/discussion.
A different group of participants took part in the second day of the consultation.
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