A young girl sitting atop her father’s shoulders, leading a political chant. A little boy with the Egyptian flag drawn across his face. A family strolling through Tahrir Square. These were common images during the January 25 Revolution when approximately 13 children reportedly lost their lives in the midst of the violence.

But as political and economic issues clamored for the nation’s attention, one of Egypt’s most vulnerable segments seemed to have become lost in the shuffle. In March of this year, nearly a month after Mubarak stepped down, the governing Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) issued a decision to bring the National Council for Childhood and Motherhood (NCCM) — responsible for mobilizing state decisions and legislation in favor of child rights — under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Health. Even though the decision was met with great resistance by members of civil society, as well as the NCCM itself, it was pretty much a done deal.

“The idea of restoring [NCCM’s] independence is not in our hands,” says Lamia Mohsen, head of NCCM. “It’s definitely a request of ours — not even that, it’s our right — but it’s all in the hands of [those currently in charge].”

The NCCM was established in 1988 as the highest national authority in charge of policy making, planning, coordinating, monitoring and evaluating the protection and development of children. Prior to the SCAF’s decision, the NCCM reported to the prime minister, while its advisory committee, which is its policy-making body, was headed by former first lady Suzanne Mubarak. The council had seven ministries, including the Ministry of Health, as its members, and it acted almost as a ministry on its own.

Today, while Mohsen claims that NCCM remains financially and administratively independent, she says the decision is sure to impact its operations. “It has affected us externally,” says Mohsen. “NCCM used to work with all the ministries, now it is following a certain minister. So even though they are still letting the council operate, it’s not the ideal scenario because it needs to be independent.”

Hany Helal, head of the Egyptian Foundation for Advancement of the Childhood Conditions, agrees. “For the NCCM to perform its proper role, it has to be independent,” he says. “The decision to [make it part of] the ministry of health killed its independence.”

As an example of why it is important for the council to regain its independence from the Ministry of Health, Helal notes that last month, there was a case of hospital neglect that led to 13 children contracting Hepatitis C.

“We all know that there are so many violations when it comes to health in Egypt, such as neglect in hospitals,” says Helal. “So when it comes time to write the report on violations against children, will the council write the full truth?”

Helal, an advocate for child rights in Egypt for several years, has worked closely with the NCCM, most recently on the Child Law amendments that came out in 2008 and took almost seven years in the process. At present, he feels the need to take matters into his own hands. Acting as the secretary general of the Egyptian Coalition on Children’s Rights (ECCR), Helal, in cooperation with the other civil society members who are part of ECCR, is launching a nationwide campaign to help put child rights back on the country’s agenda.

“The campaign is [just in] time, coinciding with the parliamentary elections,” says Helal. “We want to sit down with the different political parties and discuss with them the legislation related to child rights.”

Officially launched on October 24, the campaign is a long-term project to raise awareness of issues related to children such as child labor, female genital mutilation and child marriages.

“After the revolution, it has gotten a lot worse with an increase in violations of child rights,” says Helal.

Jacinthe Ibrahim, deputy program support manager at Plan Egypt, an international children’s development organization that works in 50 different countries, says that it is too soon to estimate the full impact, but so far, it is not looking good. “As much as the revolution has brought us a lot of great things, we didn’t think that it would have a negative impact on child rights,” says Ibrahim.

Among the early indications that children’s rights are in danger, Ibrahim notes the calls to push back the legal age of marriage to 16, after the 2008 amendments changed it to 18; current economic circumstances have led some families to want to marry off their daughters early.

Another post-revolution phenomenon is the increasing number of thugs who recruit or coerce street children to carry out criminal acts for them.

Even Libya’s civil war has indirectly impacted children here. Some 1.5 million Egyptians living and working in the neighboring country have had to return to Egypt. Many of these Egyptians are currently unemployed and either force their wives to take on extra work or take their children out of schools so that they can work as well.

But with such political turmoil gripping the nation, authorities are seemingly oblivious to children’s concerns. “People would rather focus on other issues in the country, and they don’t really care about child rights,” says Helal. “Some have said to me, ‘The country is going to hell, and you’re thinking about the children.’ But they don’t realize that the future of the country is the children because they are the ones who are going to carry out all the plans we are discussing right now.”

While pre-revolution Egypt wasn’t exactly a pioneer in child’s rights, the country had taken some steps in the right direction. Unfortunately, most of the projects to promote child rights were carried out in the name of former first lady Suzanne Mubarak.

Mentioning this fact gets under Helal’s skin. “Suzanne Mubarak was not the one responsible for child rights in Egypt,” he claims. “She used to take the work of others and credit it as her own.”

While Helal admits that the former first lady did play a slightly positive role, it was all done with the help of civil society and different organizations involved in the issue.

“We kept putting pressure on the government to adopt the issue of child rights, and Suzanne Mubarak finally decided to adopt it,” he says.

“We didn’t care who got credited for it, whether it’s us or Suzanne Mubarak, as long as the work was being done.”

Today things have shifted dramatically, and anything affiliated with the former regime is shunned by the public, which explains why entities like the NCCM are suffering in the post-Mubarak era.

“I cannot say that we are moving backward, but there’s no interest in the issues of the child. It’s not on the priority list of the authorities in charge right now,” says Mohsen. “It’s a sector that is currently suffering from neglect.”

As a result, the NCCM is trying to force its way onto the political scene. The council is currently organizing a forum called ‘Child Participation: Together We Decide’ to promote and increase the participation of children and youth, not just in the next parliamentary elections, but in politics in general.

“I have to be optimistic,” says Mohsen. “The revolution was fueled by people fighting for their rights so it won’t be responsible for the loss of child rights. Children are the future, any country that moved forward was due to its child population. We can’t move forward without our children.”