"Adults should stop considering children mini-people with mini-rights". Maud de Boer Buquicchio, deputy secretary general of the Council of Europe, was one of the speakers at the conference "Europe for and with children", promoted by the CoE in the Principality of Monaco, opened yesterday by princess Caroline and ending this afternoon. According to Buquicchio, "children should be aware of the existence of conventions protecting their rights and be able to invoke them more easily". The international conference aims "at establishing a three-year action plan for 155 million children in Europe". The two main goals of the program are: "making children’s rights a priority" and "reviewing methods for putting an end to the ever-increasing abuse of children". Representatives of governments and parliaments of the 46 member states of the CoE, children’s rights agencies and other NGOs as well as a large group of children aged 14 to 18 were at the Grimaldi Forum in Monaco. The speakers of today’s session will include Thomas Hammarberg, new commissioner for human rights of the Council of Europe, Maud de Boer-Buquicchio and Caroline of Hanover, who will close the conference.
