Bolivia’s Children’s Parliament

Bringing Participation to the National Stage

Abstract

The Bolivian Children’s Parliament experience is a concrete model of children’s participation that holds value for the child and adolescent participants themselves, and does so in a public way. Children hold their parliamentary sessions in the National Congress in the very seats of their adult congressional representatives, thus projecting a clear image of the participation of children and adolescents at a national level. Fueled by the signing of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, this model has joined children, adolescents, and governmental and nongovernmental institutions in realizing children’s right to participate in issues that affect their lives at a national level. As a relatively new experience, there is much to be learned in terms of processes for the Parliament and addressing the difficulty of local replication given the cultural diversity and scattered population of the country. Nonetheless, this is a promising practice in the solidification of democracy in Bolivia.