CHAIRMAN: DR. KHALID BIN THANI AL THANI
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: DR. KHALID BIN MUBARAK AL-SHAFI

Views /Editorial

Ensuring child safety

Published: 19 Mar 2019 - 08:08 am | Last Updated: 03 May 2025 - 03:07 pm

The Ministry of Public Health has added yet another feather to its cap regarding wellbeing of its citizens, residents and their children. The Ministry, in a new move to ensure safety of children on roads, has unveiled a national initiative aimed at creating awareness about the importance of using child passenger seats. Minister of Public Health H E Dr Hanan Al Kuwari inaugurated the Qatar National Child Passenger Safety Program ‘Ghalai’.

The initiative is said to be the first step towards introducing a law making the use of child passenger seats compulsory. There are plans to make seat belts compulsory for passengers in the rear seat as well. The Minister opened the first Ghalai checking station at the Women’s Wellness and Research Center, where child passenger safety technicians will help parents install seats for children in their cars.

“Qatar is committed to work towards ensuring members of the community and especially young children are as safe as possible on Qatar’s roads. Child passenger safety is an essential element of Decade of Action (2011-2020) global plan for road safety and we are proud that Qatar is leading the way with this unique and lifesaving service,” said H E Dr Al Kuwari.

Providing a chair for children in vehicles is important because it helps in maintaining their safety thereby reducing the possibility of the child’s injuries or deaths resulting from accidents. The initiative is a collaboration between several governmental and private institutions including the MoPH, Ministry of Interior (MoI), Hamad Medical Corporation, Conoco Philips and Saleh Al Hamad Al Mana Co. The initiative also aims at training children to abide by safety rules as a first stage in traffic awareness drive and teach them to respect traffic rules.

Colonel Mohammad Radi Al Hajri, Director of Media and Traffic Awareness Department at the General Directorate of Traffic, Ministry of Interior, highlighted that that the number of road accidents have reduced despite the increase in population and number of vehicles on roads in Qatar.  The number of deaths in traffic accidents in 2018 declined to 168 in Qatar, 4.9 per every 100,000 persons, while in 2017 a total of 177 deaths occurred at a rate of 5.4 per 100,000 persons.  A total of 28 deaths were recorded in 2018, among children under the age of 10.  

The presence of a chair for children in a vehicle has become a necessity. A study by the World Health Organization in 2016 suggested that the use of child chairs in the right way contributes to the reduction of infant mortality by about 70 percent and reduce the mortality of young children by 54 to 80 percent.  All in all, Qatar is committed to preserving the safety of all members of society, especially young people, on roads.