The Egyptian Coalition on Children's Rights demanded that constitutional amendments adopt a definition of the child and determine the criminal responsibility age, compulsory education, work, employment, and the child's right to ask for legal and health advice without parental consent.

The coalition stressed that the new constitution take into a number of considerations in its drafted articles to affirm the state's commitment to guarantee children's basic rights.

Within days, a committee of ten judges and constitutional law professors is expected to finalize amendments to the 2012 constitution.

The amendments will then be presented before a committee of 50 members, who represent the full spectrum of Egypt’s political, social and geographic sectors.

The amendments will be put to a referendum within three months from the date the committee first began its task.

“The new constitution must comprise the four guiding principles of the United Nation’s Convention on the Rights of the Child, which are the rights to life, survival, development, and non-discrimination, especially against the female child,” the coalition said in a statement.

All child-related issues must take into account the child’s best interest, it added.