discernment has the right to express his/her opinion on any matters affecting him/her, due consideration will be given to the opinion based on the age and maturity of the child. " 156.The child's opinion will be taken into account in any administrative, criminal, civil procedure, including the adoption and custody granting process. c. Freedom of association 157.Freedom of association and peaceful assembly is guaranteed by the successive Constitutions. Ordinance No. 60-133 of 30 October 1960 requires civil majority for the creation of an association. 158.In practice, a children's association is registered based on declaration made by an adult and children can join freely. Such are the cases of children scouts, youth peer educators association in some regions and clubs for children in environmental matters. 159.163 youth associations nationwide and local 228 including 214 secular and 10faithbased are registered with the Ministry of the Interior 160.Since 2007 the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications with the support of UNICEF has set up youth reporters clubs for youth aged 13 to 18 years, which aims to entertain, disseminate information, initiate discussions, feed into reflections around themes that concern young people. 161.For this purpose 400 youth from six regions were trained on child rights and on radio programmes production techniques in 21 regions except Betsiboka. 162.Any public event including peaceful assembly is subject to a system of prior authorization issued by the Commissioner of Police. The authorization may be refused in case of threat to public order. In practice, youth gathering systematically obtain the authorization. As examples there are the celebration of the World Youth Day which is annually organized by the Catholic denomination or other religious event initiated by other denominations. d. Freedom of thought, conscience and religion 163.Freedom of religion is enshrined in the Constitution. In practice, children in Madagascar adopt the religion of their parents. 164.In Madagascar, religious diversity is the rule and tolerance between different faiths is a reality. Each denomination refrains from uttering hate speech to avoid inter religion conflicting tensions. e. Protection of privacy 26

Select target paragraph3