Youth Rights need urgent action now!

Strasbourg, 25th April 2013 // The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) took important steps in the rights-based approach to youth policy through concrete measures to ensure young people’s full access to their rights by adopting a recommendation in Strasbourg yesterday

The European Youth Forum congratulates the PACE for adopting its Recommendation “Young people’s access to fundamental rights“, for showing their willingness to push forward a rights-based approach to youth policy and for reiterating its call for a binding legal framework at European level. Youth rights are now well and trully at the centre of the Council of Europe’s work.

The PACE is firmly convinced that unhindered access of young people to fundamental rights is an essential element in building a culture of human rights, democracy and the rule of law, and is concerned that youth policies in the Council of Europe Member States do not sufficiently safeguard these rights. Following the failure of the Conference of Ministers responsible for Youth held in September 2012 – the PACE recommends that the Committee of Ministers take action to enhance Member States’ capacity to evaluate young people’s access to rights, prevent the violations of these rights, provide adequate follow-up and redress and consider innovative ways to empower young people in accessing their rights.

The rapporteur from the PACE Sub-Committee on Education, Youth and Sport, Michael Connarty, successfully investigated the challenges of today’s young generation and paid special attention to the opinion expressed by young people in the Youth Assembly held in Strasbourg in October 2012 and in the youth event prior to the Conference of Ministers in St. Petersburg in September 2012.

Youth rights encompass a wide range of basic rights and fundamental freedoms, including the right to education, employment, housing, civic and political participation as well as freedom of expression. In the context of the worsening of the economic and financial crisis the plenary debate highlighted the dangers of a lost generation and the need and value of investing in youth. By addressing these issues and recognising the growing difficulty for young people to access their rights, the adoption of this Recommendation is a confirmation of the leading role of the Council of Europe in the field of human rights and democracy.

“It is a very important signal that the Council of Europe as the champion of the founding values of our societies, is putting a continuous emphasis on an even better protection of the rights of all people in Europeand bringing youth rights at the centre of its agenda,” said Peter Matjašič, President of the European Youth Forum, “We are ready and willing to work together with the Parliamentary Assembly to ensure that a real political commitment towards concrete measures of prevention, protection and promotion of the rights of young people will be taken”.

“The Council of Europe can play an outstanding role in pushing for a full enjoyment of young people’s rights and youth organisations will continue giving their contribution to this process”, commented Maria Paschou, Chair of the Advisory Council on Youth. [ENDS]

Notes to the editors:

Read the full text of the Recommendation adopted.

Read the full text of the Youth Event Conclusions as delivered and presented to the 9th Conference of Ministers held in St Petersburg, September 2012.

Read the European Youth Forum’s policy paper on Youth Rights

Download “The Young and Rightless? The Protection of Youth Rights in Europe” and the “European Youth Forum Report on the State of Youth Rights in Europe”

The European Youth Forum has been advocating for a rights-based approach to youth policy since the 1980s, striving for youth rights in Europe. In the past years, the process has taken off, mainly through the motion on the need for a convention on youth rights, initiated by the European Youth Forum and tabled at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe by the Finnish parliamentarian Antti Kaikkonen. This lead to the adoption of the Recommendation 1978 (2011) “Towards a European framework convention on youth rights”. The Youth Forum has continued bringing the process on implementing a rights-based approach on youth policy through investing in research and awareness raising, participating actively to the Ministerial Conference held in St Petersburg and co-organising the Youth Event prior to it.

The Advisory Council on Youth (AC) represents non-governmental youth organisations and has the task of formulating opinions and proposals regarding youth questions within the Council of Europe. The Council’s decision-making is on an equal basis with government representatives.