CZOP (Children as Zone of Peace National Campaign) starts in 2001 and made a loose coalition in 2003. This national campaign is a coalition of organizations working in the field of child rights (Children and Schools as Zones of Peace) including CSOs, INGOs. National Human Rights Commission and UNICEF Nepal are observer members. Now CZOP has 47 member organizations and it is formally registered in 2016. It has emerged as a movement that advocates for the protection and promotion of children’s basic rights during and after armed-conflicts. Nepal’s CZOP campaign conceptualized and promoted the idea of children as a zone of peace as a general political agenda among political parties under the child rights and child protection.
The campaign is mainly to refrain children from engaging and associating in party led political movement both armed or unarmed; and to have responsive interventions of support and relief from civil society to the victims/surviving children affected by conflict during the armed conflict period. By the continued lobbying of CZOP and CSOs, major political parties included children are zones of peace and Child protection issues in their election manifestos. In the changed context the CZOP has been focusing on the protection and promotion of child rights from 2012 especially to reduce/end corporal punishment, Child Marriage, Child labour, abuse and exploitation in all settings. The campaign has forged to magnify and strengthen the efforts to declare children as Zones of Peace including establishment of Schools as Peace Zone. In the past 18 years of campaigning the CZOP campaign in Nepal has conceptualized in policies and included in the election manifesto of major political parties.
The Government of Nepal has adopted School as Zone of Peace Guideline in 2011 and included use of children in political protest and campaign as crime against children in Children Act (2075). CZOP is advocating with parliamentarians, policy makers and political leaders to make child friendly environment. The CZOP lobbies and advocates and partnering with governments to end violence against children; child marriage, child labour, corporal punishment, abuse and exploitation for the policy changes in new state restructure on Nepal. Now, CZOP is lobbying to endorse National Plan of Action on Children, to amend National Strategy to End Child Marriage-2072, Amend Child Labor (prohibition and regulation) Act 2056, determine best interest of children needed special protection (Children Act 2018-Sec. 48), Safe and peace Schools based on the newly endorsed fundamental acts and Constitution of Nepal 2018. In addition to this the CZOP/SZOP is a Sustainable Development Goal Agenda; the SDG 4 and 5.3 on Quality Education and to end child marriage. Similarly, the SDG 16 is for peace promotion and safety for children.
CZOP is partnering with different stakeholders to reduce discrimination against children especially on child marriage and sexual exploitation since 2017.To achieve the CZOP mission, it has been strategically partnering with the National Human Rights Commission. Likewise, CZOP has been working with MoWCSC and other ministries at federal level, the parliamentary committee in federal and provincial level. For the local level, it has been technical supporting to the local CBOs and NGOs under its major themes: a) Policy Advocacy, b) Child Protection, c) School/Children are zones of Peace and protection, and d) Institutional Development.
Collective Campaign along with Solidarity for Children as Zone of Peace
Peace In Emergency Our Dream: Protection of Children Our Vision
Collective effort to ensure children as zones of peace through evidence based policy advocacy.
During the period of armed conflict, the rights of children were severely affected. Many Schools were used by Nepal Army and/or Maoist Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) as their parade grounds or shelters. Number of children was forcefully used as child soldiers by rebellions. Many children lost their lives in a cross fires and mine/bomb blasts. As a result, regular teaching activities were seriously disrupted. Therefore, the child focus agencies came together by forming a coalition Children as Zone of Peace (CZOP) in August 21, 2003 to advocate for children’s basic right to life, development, and protection. After the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) in 2006, CZOP decided to concentrate on child protection as one of major intervention areas keeping in the view of the country context where abuse, exploitation, violence against children were rampant and gross violations of the rights of the child were occurring. So, Children as Zone of Peace National Campaign became Children as Zone Of Peace and Protection in 2008 and started working for the promotion of child protection in the country. Again in 2015, taking into consideration the recommendation from the assessment and with a realization that issues of protection are inevitably covered while advocating for children and schools as zones of peace, CZOPP decided to remove P-Protection and retain its original name CZOP i.e. Children Zone of Peace. Similarly, in order to have an institutional memory as well as to manage organizational knowledge base, CZOPP decided to conduct an assessment entitled “Impact Assessment” so as to assess its efficiency, effectiveness, organizational structure, relationship with external and internal institutions and identifying lesson learned and good practices. Based on the recommendation of the same assessment report, CZOP formally registered itself in District Administrative Office, Kathmandu and got an affiliation from Social Welfare Council. CZOP, a national coalition of organizations working in the field of child rights (Children and Schools as Zones of Peace), has emerged as a movement that advocates for protection and promotion of children’s basic rights during and after armed-conflicts. Building up on the movements that developed in Nepal in early 2001, this coalition has forged to magnify and strengthen the efforts to declare children as Zones of Peace including establishment of Schools as Peace Zone.