b) Ensure that the health care system has sufficient trained personnel, and
essential healthcare facilities;
c) Increase and strengthen investment in agriculture to achieve food security
and control malnutrition among children;
d) Improve the implementation of the free healthcare policy;
e) Increase the scale of the school feeding programme in order to contribute to
healthy living among school children; and
f) Undertake necessary measures to gradually eradicate child and infant
mortality from preventable causes.
Child participation
16. The Committee commends the establishment of the Children’s Forum Network (
CFN) with an administrative wing and a children’s parliament in 2001. The
Committee recommends the State Party to take measures to ensure the
sustainability of the children’s parliament by providing the necessary financial and
human resources. The Committee also recommends that children’s parliaments are
established by law at the district level, ensure that children in vulnerable situation
including girls and children with disabilities are represented, and establish a
mechanism through which the views of children’s parliaments are given due
consideration in the legislative and policy making processes in the country. The
Committee further recommends the State Party to take legislative and other
measures to ensure that in all judicial proceedings affecting a child who is capable of
communicating her or his views, opportunity is provided for the chid to be heard.
D. Civil rights and freedoms
Right to name, nationality and birth registration
17. The Committee notes with appreciation the significant increase in the rate of birth
registration in the period of 2008 to 2010. However, the Committee has learnt that
there are still challenges with regard to the realisation of free, universal and
accessible birth registration in the Country. The Committee notes the existence of
the low accessibility of birth registration facilities particularly in rural areas; the high
number of unregistered children; the decline of the rate of birth registration from
2010 to 2013; incomplete birth registration records as a result of the culture of
naming children months after they are born; low awareness among families and
communities of the importance of birth registration; weak decentralized systems for
birth registration data collection; and lack of data on the rate and number of birth
7