Office of the Ombudsman, Samoa‘s National Human Rights Institution Submission to the Committee on the Rights of the Child – September 2015  identifying legislation dealing with the care and protection of children in Samoa; and  the extent of Samoa‘s compliance with obligations under the Convention. 22. In 2011, the government, in collaboration with UNICEF, carried out a Baseline Research on Child Protection in Samoa which was to review domestic legislation against CRC indicators to determine the extent of the government‘s compliance with the obligations under the Convention. The legislative review revealed that the problems affecting child care and protection of children today are due to inadequate legislative protection and poor enforcement of existing legislation arising from the confusion and impracticality of not having consolidated legislation relating to child care protection.10 It was recommended in the final report by the SLRC that the enactment of new child care and protection legislation would facilitate compliance with the obligations under the Convention and make future child related law reform easier. 23. The Bill consolidates child care protection legislation and partially ensures that the government is meeting its obligations under the Convention and fills in some of the gaps in the current laws in relation to children to be in line with the Convention. For example, the Bill eliminates discrimination with regards to the minimum legal age for boys and girls to marry, making it 18 for both sexes.11 The core principle for administering the Bill is that of the safety, well-being and that the best interests of the child is paramount. While it is commendable that the government has included a best interests principle in the Bill, the NHRI is concerned that having the best interests of the child as the paramount consideration is inconsistent with the Convention. In order to mirror the best interests principle under the Convention, the Bill should be amended to include that the best interests of the child is a primary consideration. The NHRI recognises that the ambit of the terminology ―in all actions concerning children‖ in Article 1 of the Convention includes actions in which parties could have equal claims to have their interests considered.12 24. The Bill expands on the Ordinance with regards to the care and protection of children when under custody. The Bill takes fa’asamoa into consideration as it has been drafted with local culture and tradition in mind. However, where the rights of children come into conflict with fa’asamoa, the protection provisions of the Act prevail.13 See Recommendation 2 10 Samoa Law Reform Commission Final Report ‗Child Care and Protection Legislation, February 2013, pg 8. 11 Samoa‘s Constitution at Article 15 guarantees equal protection under the law to all persons (including children) and that there should be no discrimination against any person based on grounds only of descent, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, social origin, place of birth, family status, or any of them. 12 See UNICEF Implementation Handbook for the Convention on the Rights of the Child http://www.unicef.org/publications/index_43110.html [accessed at 4 September 2015] at 39 13 Child Care and Protection Bill 2015, s 4(2) 10