Istanbul Islamic Summit to launch strategy for Child Welfare

Jeddah – The issues of child and woman are included in the topics of the 13th Islamic Summit Conference in Istanbul, Turkey, which is expected to come out with recommendations related to the status of women and children in the member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC).

An OIC source told the International Islamic New Agency (IINA) that the Islamic Summit, to be held on April 14-15, will call on the member states to speed up the signing and ratifying of the Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam. The OIC General Secretariat will be entrusted to develop a strategy for child welfare and well-being in the Islamic countries, which takes into account, inter alia, maternal and child health and their educational and psychological circumstances in conflict zones, besides child marriage and other forms of violence against children.

It is to be recalled that the 32nd session of the Islamic Conference of Foreign Ministers (ICFM), held in Sana'a, Yemen, in 2005, adopted the OIC Covenant on the Rights of the Child in Islam that guarantees the children welfare and their right to education, among other rights.

The Summit will call for further improvement of healthcare, where the OIC statistics suggest that the marked improvement in the coverage of healthcare services in the member states resulted in the reduction of child mortality from 125 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1990 to 66 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2013, the source said.

The Summit seeks to engage religious scholars in maintaining the children's well-being and their physical health, through inviting scholars and imams to support the polio eradication campaigns and encouraging people to respond to them.

Beside the children, the issues of women will occupy a large portion of the summit deliberations, whereby the death causes of 130,000 women in the OIC countries yearly, due to preventable diseases related to pregnancy and childbirth, are expected to be discussed. This represents 44 percent of the global maternal mortality ratio.

The Summit will also discuss ways for the advancement and empowerment of women in the Muslim countries, through the call on the member states that have not ratified the Statute of the OIC Women Development Organization to accelerate the completion of the ratification procedures, so that it enters into effect and enable the organization to initiate its activities.

It should be noted that the 6th Ministerial Conference on the Role of Women in the Development of OIC member states will be held in Turkey this year, during which the modern challenges faced by Muslim women will be discussed and recommendations for solving them will be submitted.