It is inadmissible to use the images of children for political and electoral purposes. The ombudswoman for children’s right Maia Bănărescu underlined the absence of clear provisions for penalizing the electoral players that use children and their images in breach of the international standards. She noted special training is needed to encourage the development of safe environments and circumstances in which the children can develop political skills.
In a news conference at IPN, Maia Bănărescu presented a report compiled after monitoring the involvement of children in political activities by electoral contenders in the presidential elections of November 2020. The ombudsman said the legal framework does not stipulate the obligation of those in charge to appropriately implement, not to limit the involvement of children in the electoral process.
Maia Bănărescu suggested supplementing the law on meetings, the Contravention Code and the Penal Code with provisions that would penalize the organizers of meeting for engaging minors in political events. A similar proposal was formulated back in 2017. She also suggests supplementing the normative framework, especially the electoral legislation, with regulations that ban the use of child picture’s in electoral campaigns, referendums, agitation/political propaganda that pose a threat to the life and health of minors or harm their honor and dignity without the consent of the parents/legal representatives. It is also necessary to review the law on the rights of children given the current social realities, including in terns of accessibility, predictability and clarity of the legal provisions.
In the monitoring period - October 1- November 1, 2020 (first round of elections) and November 2 – November 15, 2020 (runoff) – there were identified 96 cases of use of child images in the online environment, three cases of use minors’ images in posters, brochures and videos, 96 cases when the electoral meetings are held with the participation of minors and six cases of use of child labor for disseminating electoral posters. Maia Bănărescu said the international standards bans the use of child pictures and voluntary participation of children in the process of taking decisions that concern him. Comments 12, 14 and 20 of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child provide that the child’s opinion and the participation of children should be taken into account in any field in which the child shows interest in accordance with the their development and physiological and psychological maturity.
Maia Bănărescu called on the election contenders and other persons involved in election campaigns to treat the children by respecting their human dignity and not to allow actions that would affect their private life. She called upon media service providers not to distribute advertisements based on child pictures and to ensure that correct information adjusted to the maturity of children is provided and also on the parents and teachers and other persons involved in the raising and education of children to correctly inform the children about the electoral processes by ensuring the rights deriving from these processes are explained.
Report author Ana Cereteu, who works on probation at the Children’s Rights Division of the Ombudsperson’s Office, presented the results of the questionnaire by which children were asked about their participation in electoral processes. 44.7% of those surveyed said they know what an electoral process is, 64.9% said they were informed about their rights in this process at school. Also, 134 children of the over 400 interviewed said they took part in at least one meeting of electoral candidates with voters together with their parents or one of the parents, 130 said they took part in such meetings at school at the suggestion of a teacher, while 72 said they took part on their own initiative. Sixty-four children said they were involved in the distribution of brochures, newspapers of an electoral contender without being remunerated, while 30 children said they were paid for doing this.
