ISSUE BRIEFING
Children’s Rights

Introduction

Children are entitled to the same human rights as everyone else. Special protections exist for children because their rights are more likely to be abused than those of adults and because children are less likely to be able to protect themselves from these abuses.

This page introduces two aspects of children’s rights: the law that has helped to create those rights and some of the events and circumstances that can really prevent children from enjoying their rights.

International Law

The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is the treaty that was designed to specifically protect the rights of children. Almost every country in the world has signed the CRC and agreed to protect the rights of children. Only Somalia, which has not had a government that works well enough to sign-up to or ‘ratify’ the treaty, and the United States, which traditionally does not ratify human rights treaties and has concerns about the compatibility of its values with the CRC, have not become members.

The CRC also has two Optional Protocols, agreements that were written after the original treaty and which deal with specific problems. The First Optional Protocol is aimed at ending the practice of using children as soldiers and the Second Optional Protocol prohibits the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.

The CRC is structured around four main ideas. It asks governments, individuals, and communities to:

• protect children without any discrimination;
• put priority on serving the best interests of the child;
• set standards for survival and development needs (e.g. health care and education); and
• respect the views of the child.

It also created the Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors how well states have lived up to the terms of the CRC and evaluates reports that states must submit on their efforts to fulfil the terms of the treaty.

Specific Rights

While the CRC protects all of the same human rights that adults have, it also makes a special effort to protect rights that are only guaranteed to children. All treaties place obligations on governments to do things, but the CRC places an obligation on those governments to protect children, which is larger than the obligations regarding adults imposed by other human rights treaties.

One of the most innovative components of the CRC is its emphasis on giving children a chance to speak out and be listened to on decisions that affect them directly. Equally as important, adults must always act in ways that are in the best interest of the affected children.

The CRC also specifically notes the rights to which disabled children are entitled and prohibits children from performing dangerous work. In general, it charges governments with the responsibility to protect children’s rights if their parents are unable to do so or have been violating their rights. It also charges all people (including children) with the responsibility to respect and protect the rights of others.

Unlike some of the other international human rights treaties, the CRC has an equal impact upon the lives of people in the developing world and in the developed world. In part, this is because children have traditionally been denied certain rights, like the opportunity to be consulted and express an opinion, all over the world, not just in less-developed countries. However, the rights can be interpreted as having different meanings in different contexts, depending on the specific obstacles that each state faces in achieving the goals of the CRC. In one country, working toward non-discrimination might mean focusing on providing equal opportunities to receive government aid, regardless of religion or ethnic group. In another, it might mean that the government works especially hard to protect children from bullying based on race, religion, appearance, etc.

Gender

The CRC protects all children, but recognises that it may take a special effort to ensure that the rights of girls are protected. This is because girls and women are at a much higher risk than men and boys of discrimination and mistreatment around the world. It will take extra work, for example, to make sure that girls receive education in a society where far fewer girls go to school than boys. Statistics also show that girls are much more likely to be sexually abused, trafficked and end up working in the sex industry. Because of this, governments must take actions that are specifically aimed at ending girls’ vulnerability, as well as taking actions to help boys. Women and girls also receive extra protection under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW).

Children & War

During war, starvation and illness kill far more people than actual fighting. In Somalia, for example, half of the country’s children under five died during 1992. In Uganda in the 1970s, 78% of the war deaths were due to starvation, 20% from disease and only 2% from violence. In any wartime situation, children are especially vulnerable because they are especially prone to malnutrition which can stunt growth and development and are more likely to contract diseases than adults. Children may also be separated from their parents and are very unlikely to continue to receive an education.

Around the world, children are recruited to serve in armies. Some countries, like the United States and the United Kingdom, will allow 16-year-olds to enlist in the armed services. In other places, children as young as six are kidnapped, sold, or recruited into armies, resistance groups, and guerrilla forces. Some will take part in actual fighting; others will serve as support for grown-ups by cooking, cleaning, carrying water, delivering messages and being used for sexual purposes. Many children are desensitised to the violence in which they take part and do not receive an education. Because children have needs that differ from those of adults, special care must be taken when helping former child soldiers.

Children and Development

Children are disproportionately affected by poverty because deprivation has an especially detrimental effect on growth and development (mental, physical and emotional). Poor living conditions can stunt growth, be major obstacles to school attendance and learning and cause serious illness or even death. Childhood mortality continues to represent a serious problem: some 10 million children die every year before the age of five. More than 70 percent of these can be traced to six causes: diarrhoea, malaria, neonatal infection, pneumonia, premature births, and oxygen deficiency at birth. With adequate health care facilities, better access to clean water and sanitation, food, and improved hygiene, many of these deaths could be prevented, as they have been in the developed world.

Many anti-poverty strategies talk about ‘breaking the cycle of poverty,’ or making childhood health and education a priority to help children grow up to achieve better employment, greater income, a higher quality of life and to escape from absolute poverty. This is one reason why several of the Millennium Development Goals specifically address children’s issues as well as seeking to eliminate poverty in general.

Issues to Consider  

• Has my country signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child? Has it lodged any reservations to the treaty and what are the possible implications of those reservations?  

• What is life like for the children of my country? How many of them go to school and for how many years? Is there enough food and water to meet their needs? How many children die before their fifth birthday? Do children work? Are the girls circumcised? What other information do I need to understand the life of a child in my country?  

• Are my country’s children affected by any particular problems that could prevent them from having their rights? For example, are there high levels of poverty, low levels of education, conflicts in which children are serving as soldiers, etc.? Are children in my country likely to be trafficked?  

• Are there problems or situations that have a different effect on children of different genders? Is the girl child more vulnerable to abuse?  

• What solutions have been proposed or implemented, even on a small scale, in my country, or similar countries, that have improved the lives of children? Which problems do they address? Do they affect girls differently than boys? How?

RESOURCES

Key Stages 3 & 4

• Human Rights
  
• Australia Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Information for Students: Human Rights Information for Students
• United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) World Explorers: Your rights, a very simple introduction to children’s rights
• Save the Children: Children’s Rights, a teacher’s guide
• Maplecroft: Global Maps of Children’s Rights Risk (found in drop-down menu, no log-in required)
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Voices of Youth:
• Know Your Rights, an introduction to children’s rights presented though examples and questions
• Participation, standing up for your rights
• A World Fit for Us, message delivered by young people to the General Assembly’s Special Session on Children
• BBC World Service, Children’s Rights: Children report on children’s rights
• The People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning: Human Rights, Children and Youth

• CRC
  
• Rights 4 Me, the website of the Office of Children’s Rights Director for England:
• Introduction to the CRC
• Summaries of some UK laws that affect children & young people
• Australia Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Information for Students:
• ‘What is the CRC? What does it do?’
• ‘How the CRC can benefit children’
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF):
• Convention on the Rights of the Child , introduction
• Rights protected by the CRC
• Dictionary of treaty terms
• Royal Canadian Mounted Police: The CRC in child-friendly language

• Gender
  
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Women and Children, the Double Dividend of Gender Equality, the State of the World’s Children 2007: How does gender equality help everyone?
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Voices of Youth:
• The Girl Child Quiz
• The Benefits of Gender Equality
• Fact Sheet
• Taking Action
• Glossary
• Human Rights Watch, Violence Against Girls: summaries of reports on three aspects of violence against girl children, not specifically written for children:
• Violence Against Schoolgirls
• Violence Against Child Domestic Workers
• Violence Against Girls in Conflict with the Law
• The People’s Movement for Human Rights Learning: Human Rights & the Girl-Child

• Children & War
  
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF):
• The State of the World’s Children 1996, Children in War
• Children caught up in conflict
• BBC World Service: Children of Conflict, a human rights issue
• Global Movement for Children: Protect Children from War provides brief introductions to different aspects of this campaign promise and links to organisations doing work in this area
• War Child: The 10 Most Dangerous Places for Children
• War Child Canada, get loud (youth outreach website): Get Plugged In for background on countries and issues that are related to children and conflict
• Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers: Introduction pages, including definitions, facts, testimony by young soldiers
• Canadian Red Cross, Youth Mine Action Ambassador Program: Children and Landmines

• Children & Poverty
  
• Maplecroft: Child Labour Map (found in drop-down menu, no log-in required)
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Childhood Under Threat, the State of the World’s Children 2005:
• Children Living in Poverty
• Poverty map
• End Child Poverty: Children in poverty diminishes us all

A-Level & University

• Human Rights
  
• Amnesty International:
• What is Meant by Human Rights?
• The State of the World’s Human Rights, 2006
• US State Department, International Information Programs: What are human rights?, written by one of the world’s leading human rights scholars
• Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) International Law page with links to human rights treaties
• Neither Seen Nor Heard: The Idea of the “Child” as Impediment to the Rights of the Child
• Children’s Rights, speech to a Labour Party Conference fringe event in 2005 by Francesca Klug, one of Britain’s leading human rights scholars
• Amnesty International Irish Section: Our Rights, Our Future: Human Rights Based Approaches in Ireland: Principles, Policies and Practice, groundbreaking report from AI Ireland that has been widely used to help activists use the language of human rights to promote and achieve change
• Quaker United Nations Office: Rights of the Child – Children of Imprisoned Mothers
• Human Rights Watch: Children’s Rights page, updated often with reports, briefing papers, and press releases about human rights abuses against children around the world

• CRC
  
• Committee on the Rights of the Child:
• Periodic Reports and documents (see under the committee’s name)
• Information on the Reporting Process
• General Comments
• Non-country Specific Recommendations
• UK Government page Every Child Matters, Change for Children: background information on the CRC
• Children’s Rights Information Centre: Frequently asked questions about the CRC

• Gender
  
• Committee on the Rights of the Child: 1995 Recommendation on the Girl Child
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Women and Children, the Double Dividend of Gender Equality, the State of the World’s Children 2007:
• Full report
• Fact sheet about gender discrimination
• Amnesty International: 15 Steps to Protect Women’s Human Rights
• Quaker United Nations Office: The Voices of Girl Child Soldiers
• Child Rights Information Network: A Rights-Based Approach to Realising Gender Equality
• UN Population Fund (UNFPA), The Promise of Equality: Gender Equality, Reproductive Health & the MDGs, State of World Population 2005:
• Key Messages
• Gender Equality fact sheet
• Child Marriage fact sheet
• UN Population Fund (UNFPA), UNFPA’s Experience in Implementing the Beijing Platform for Action: The Girl-Child, summary of recommendations made by the Beijing Platform for Action

• Children & War
  
• Committee on the Rights of the Child: 1992 Recommendation on Children in Armed Conflict
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), UNICEF in Emergencies: page with links to UN documents that deal with children and armed conflict
• Save the Children UK:
• Children – Not Soldiers, guidelines for working with child soldiers and children associated with fighting forces

• Children & Poverty
  
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), Special Session on Children:
• Introduction to the event
• A World Fit for Children , outcome document
• General Assembly resolution A/RES/S-27/2, adopts the Special Session outcome document
• We the Children, meeting the promises of the World Summit for Children, report from the Secretary-General
• UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF):
• Poverty Reduction Begins with Children
• Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research, University of Bristol:
• Child Rights and Child Poverty in Developing Countries
• Child Poverty in the Developing World
• Using Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) and Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) data to measure child poverty, fantastic and exciting proposal for new ways to measure poverty, based on a scale of access to needs instead of monetary amounts (e.g. $1 a day)
• Save the Children UK: Child Poverty in the UK

SAMPLE RESOLUTION

GA/1/1.1

Subject of Resolution: Children in War

Submitted to: The First Committee (Disarmament and International Security)

 Sponsored by: El Salvador, Kuwait, New Zealand, Estonia, Niger

 The First Committee,

Noting the advances made for the protection of children affected by armed conflict, particularly in the areas of advocacy and the development of norms and standards,

Remaining deeply concerned over the lack of overall progress on the ground, where parties to conflict continue to violate international law relating to the rights and protection of children in armed conflict,

Stressing the primary role of national Governments in providing effective protection and relief to all children affected by armed conflicts,

 Recalling the responsibilities of States to prosecute those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and other crimes perpetrated against children,

Convinced that the protection of children in armed conflict should be regarded as an important aspect of any comprehensive strategy to resolve conflict,

Gravely concerned by the documented links between the use of child soldiers and the illegal trafficking of small arms and light weapons and stressing the need for all States to take measures to prevent and to put an end to such trafficking,

Guided by the values enshrined in the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the Fourth Geneva Convention, The Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War,

Deeply disturbed by the devastating effects that war can have on children’s mental, physical and emotional health,

1. Encourages all member states to ratify, withdraw reservations and work to implement the Convention on the Rights of the Child, its Optional Protocols and other major human rights treaties;

2. Calls upon parties to dispute and mediators to consider the needs of children when negotiating ceasefire and peace agreements;

3. Requests that UN agencies and other organisations continue to provide humanitarian relief in a way that prioritises the needs of children and seeks to fulfil these needs;

4. Reminds member states that the use of child soldiers is outlawed under international law;

5. Resolves to continue to work to combat the illegal trafficking of small arms and light weapons.