Ten Lithuanian candidates for the European Parliament have already signed the Child Rights Manifesto, agreeing to become Child Rights Champions once they've been elected.

The Human Rights Monitoring Institute, together with the Child Rights Coalition, invited almost 200 candidates for the European Parliament to sign the European Child Rights Manifesto. HRMI drew the candidates' attention to the fact that around 600 million children worldwide are currently living in poverty - and of that number, one in four reside in the EU. In just a year, the number of children in the EU at risk of poverty or social exclusion grew by half a million.

With the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty, the role of the European Parliament in shaping European policy became exceptionally important. As such, MEPs can use their clout to improve the situation of children in both the EU and elsewhere by encouraging governments, EU institutions, member states and development partners to place children’s rights at the heart of all EU policies and actions, to allocate sufficient funding to children from EU instruments and to engage children in decision making.

The campaign was launched by Eurochild, a network of children's rights organizations in Europe, together with 13 other international child rights organizations, such as “Save the Children” and UNICEF.