Children’s Rights Commissioner Elena Pericleous has written to MEP Fidias Panayiotou expressing serious concern over how children’s participation was safeguarded in videos linked to a campaign over electricity.
Pericleous also issued a public statement on 5 October, saying the issue went beyond the specific case and raised broader questions about how adults understand and safeguard children’s meaningful participation in public life.
She said children have the right to be informed, express opinions, question decisions, campaign for change and take part peacefully in demonstrations on issues that concern them.
“There is a difference between children participating and adults mobilising or instrumentalising them,” Pericleous said.
She said meaningful participation required children to be properly informed, understand the issue on which they were being asked to take a position and be free to decide whether they wanted to take part.
Children must also be able to express their own views rather than repeat messages shaped by adults, she said.
Pericleous said using children to strengthen a political position or public campaign did not amount to genuine participation. Where an adult used their influence to direct a child’s opinion or choice, she said, this could amount to manipulation.
The same principles applied online, she added, saying children’s voices should not be used to advance adults’ objectives.
Pericleous stressed that protecting children from being used for adult purposes should not mean denying them the right to form opinions, make choices and participate in public life.
Her statement said participation was meaningful when children had appropriate information and space to think, agree or disagree and decide for themselves whether they wished to take part.
She said adults should create the conditions for children to become informed, develop their own views, exchange ideas, create and make suggestions, rather than speaking through them.
Pericleous said children had the right to play an active role in public life, provided that participation was based on their own informed decisions.
