It had defined a strategic health plan for infants, children and adolescents 2016-2025, and it was making great efforts to improve the education system and to make it free of charge for all children. Panama had also managed to reduce the number of girls and boys who worked. The Government also strengthened inter-institutional coordination in order to define actions to prevent violence against children, and for the first time it had established a formal mechanism of permanent consultation with children. The National Committee for Deinstitutionalization, comprised of Government and civil society representatives, had been set up to define actions to ensure the systematic protection of the rights of girls, boys and adolescents, and to advance the process of deinstitutionalization of children.
Introducing the report, Yazmin Cardenas, Director of the National Secretariat of Childhood, Adolescence and Family of Panama, stated that Panama continued to develop activities seeking to ensure effective implementation of the Convention, and redefining its public policies, programmes and services based on the principle of the best interest of the child. GENEVA (18 January 2018) - The Committee on the Rights of the Child today concluded its consideration of the combined fifth and sixth periodic report of Panama under the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
