Statement by President Mattarella to celebrate the World Day for the Rights of Children and Adolescents

ThePresidentof theRepublic,Sergio Mattarella,released the following statementto markthe World Day for the Rights of Children and Adolescents:

«Every day, in every corner of the Earth, children continue to die under airstrikes, are brutalized and exploited- in the body and mind-and are abducted and discriminated. The tragedies of which they are innocent victims will mark their lives forevermore.

The world thus deprives itself of its future.

Year after year, wars, climate crises, and povertyincrease the number of children and adolescents who escape their condition and their homeland while seeking to keep safe and to liberate themselves from an inhuman fate.

Also in Italy the data depictan unacceptable situation in which minors live in conditions of poverty.

The commitmentthat, also stimulated throughthe ratificationof the Convention on the Rights oftheChild, has beengenerously dedicatedto the issueup to now has proven to be insufficient: the existing gap between the needs and the resultsistoo wide.

The effortsneeded to effectively protect the rights of children are far from being fulfilled.

Girls and boys have the right to have equal opportunities in life; they have the right to being heard and accepted and to live out their ageto the full.

They have the right to peace.

To tangibly recognize and promote these rights by providing them with the necessary tools to become informed adults means giving us all hope for a better future. ».