The European Commission launched a public consultation today on a new EU children's rights strategy. The answers will be used to find out how EU policies can do more to promote children’s rights. The consultation will cover issues like child-friendly justice, violence against children, child poverty and child participation. It is open until 20 August 2010.

Protecting the rights of children in daily life requires a different approach than for adults: whether it is a child participating at a trial, involved in a family dispute, dealing with public administrations, or facing challenging situations like migration, violence or poverty. To know what their rights are and to have them respected, an EU-wide strategy can provide good guidance and useful input. The EU and its Member States want to ensure that children get care and protection and that their voice is heard.

In 2006 the Commission launched a strategy on the rights of the child to make sure EU policies promote children's rights. This new public consultation aims to improve and find new potential actions for the re-launch of the strategy for the period 2011-2014. As usual, it will draw on the experience of citizens and organisations, associations, bodies, institutions, and experts who deal with the protection and promotion of children's rights from local to international level.

The consultation is looking at specific areas – identified by people working in the field at the Forum for the Rights of the Child – where children might face problems such as:

• Child-friendly justice and children's participation in the justice system (as witnesses, for example)
• Justice policies safeguarding children's rights, such as in the framework of family mediation
• Protecting vulnerable groups of children (victims of violence, sexual exploitation or trafficking, or children living in poverty)
• Child participation in the development of policies affecting children.

The Commission will publish a report summarising all the contributions received through this consultation. It will use the results when drafting a new Communication on the Rights of the Child to cover the period 2011-2014. The Public Consultation on the Commission's Communication on the Rights of the Child (2011-2014) is open from 11 June until 20 August

The EU has a wide range of child-protection policies: from the 116 000 missing child hotline to the Safer Internet Programme, which in its latest form aims to empower children to deal with online dangers like bullying and grooming.