President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih has established the Presidential Commission to Inquire into Child Rights Violations.
President Solih established the Commission under the powers vested in him stipulated under Article 115 of the Constitution of Maldives, to safeguard and ensure the protection of child rights and to expedite systematic efforts of rectification. The commission is tasked with probing the actions and assessing the current situation of all cases handled by all state parties and institutions mandated to protect children from harm, which will include all cases of violence, neglect, abuse and cruelty against children.
The committee is also mandated to identify and analyse the root causes of all forms of violations against children, including motives, where it happens, age groups of perpetrators, socio-economic factors, crime rates, susceptibility to violence, current situation of victims and accountability of state institutions in undertaking their responsibility.
The purpose of establishing the commission is to examine and recommend appropriate remedial measures to rectify systematic failures, placing instruments of ensuring protection for children, thus enabling authorities to take action against perpetrators who mistreat, neglect, violate, abuse and exploit children. In addition, the commission will gather information, analyse and report on all infringements on all child rights guaranteed by the law and seek avenues to convict perpetrators.
Dr. Aafiya Ali was appointed as president of the commission, while Dr. Abdul Malik, Abdulla Rabiu, Maziya Abdul Sattar and Nicholas Richard Cowdery were appointed as members of the commission.
Cowdery is an outspoken Australian expert in the field of human rights and law. He previously served as Director of Public Prosecutions in New South Wales, Australia from 1994 to 2011 and is the co-chair of the Human Rights Institute.
The Child Rights Protection Act ratified by the president on November 20, 2019 came into force on February 2020. The reconstituted Child Rights Protection Act outlines the rights and responsibilities for children, duties of the state, community and parents to protect such rights and seeks to reduce disparities between the previous law and international child protection laws and standards.