Child Rights and Protection
From Governancevillage WIKI
The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is an important addition to international human rights law because, before the CRC, children had only marginally been included in general human rights instruments. They were assumed, like women and the working class before them, to lack rationality, autonomy and capacity. The CRC, which stands out from other human rights treaties for including social, economic and cultural rights, as well as civil and political rights, provides an instrument for guiding policy and programming for children. The CRC enshrines children’s rights…
- ...as persons, where the rights recognized for adults are extended to children
- ...as children entitled to additional protections, including protection from abuse, exploitation, neglect and violence, in light of their “un-evolved” capacities and vulnerability
- ...as juveniles with the competency to make informed decisions on matters that affect them, and with the right to express their opinion, to assemble, and to access information
- ...as future adults with rights related to their development, such as the right to education and to the highest attainable standards of health
A child focus in human rights-based development programming emphasizes respect for the human dignity of children; it accounts for experiences, knowledge and coping strategies that children already possess; it works to empower children as protagonists in their own development, as contributors to their families, and as agents and facilitators of change in their communities. This approach involves:
- Using the CRC and its optional protocols as a guiding framework, and drawing on the observations of the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the body responsible for monitoring states’ implementation of the CRC
- Ensuring that the process of development interventions is conducted in a way that is consistent with the CRC
- Adopting the respect for, and the protection and fulfillment of children’s rights as the explicit objective of development policy and programming
- Applying core principles of a child-focused human rights approach to development programming, including principles of non-discrimination, participation, accountability, and indivisibility, as well as the CRC’s Guiding Principles
In the 2006 edition of its flagship report, The State of the World’s Children 2006, UNICEF shows that meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) requires attention to child protection. The report calls for a human rights-based approach to development and proposes long-term initiatives that give special attention to the most vulnerable and boost their access to essential services. The 2007 edition of the report focuses on discrimination against women and girls, and suggests that investment in women and the promotion of gender equality not only moves the MDGs forward, but produces a double dividend by advancing the rights of both women and children.
Child Protection is a governance issue involving accountability of the state to all of its citizens, young and old. It requires that the public sector and other responsible actors have the capacity necessary to foster a protective environment for children and to respond to rights violations. National governance is greatly strengthened by integrating children’s rights and protection through, for example:
- Legislative reform in line with the CRC
- Improvement of national statistical capacity to monitor and report on children’s rights
- Strengthening of public sector and human rights institutions accountable for realizing children’s rights
- Capacity-development of children’s rights and child-led civil society organizations, and
- Attention to children’s rights and protection in national development plans, poverty reduction strategies and program-based approaches
A range of Canadian and international web-based resources exist that provide useful knowledge on the conceptual and practical aspects of child rights. Examples of current and relevant Canadian and international knowledge resources are identified below.
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[edit] Key Documents on a Child-Focus in Rights-based Development Programming
This discussion paper, written by children rights expert Gerison Lansdown, offers a detailed explanation of child-focused human rights programming and the obstacles to applying rights-based approaches to work with children.
Karin Landgren proposes a conceptual framework for human rights-based development programming that identidies not the symptoms of child abuse, violence and exploitation, but the underlyling systems necessary to protect children and the factors that strengthen or undermine the protection available.
[edit] Canadian Resources on Child Rights and Protection
1. Within a programming approach based on the CRC, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) has developed significant expertise in child protection: it has undertaken efforts to realize children’s rights to adequate and appropriate protection from abuse, exploitation and discrimination and developed special measures to ensure that vulnerable and marginalized children also benefit from development. The Children’s Rights and Protection Unit at CIDA offers tools and publications as well as an overview of CIDA’s children’s rights and protection work. Moreover, CIDA’s Children’s Rights and Protection Network (ChildNet) is a repository of news and key documents, and a venue for knowledge sharing on themes regarding children, their rights and protection.
2. The Canadian Coalition for the Rights of Children (CCRC) has a mandate to ensure a collective voice for Canadian organizations and youth concerned with the rights of children as described in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Among its many activities, the CCRC establishes national, provincial, regional, local, and international links with organizations concerned with the well being of children, and acts as an informal information network in Canada for materials related to the Convention. The CCRC website includes a searchable resource guide that brings together some of the most accessible resources on children's rights in Canada, a series of booklets about the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, Canada's non-governmental progress reports to the UN, and a quarterly newsletter with news on children’s rights issues.
3. The Government of Canada’s NGO Forum on Children and Armed Conflict (or CAC Forum), formerly the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee’s Working Group on Children and Armed Conflict (CACWG), brings together Canadian organizations and individuals working with children and youth and committed to promoting respect for the rights of children before, during and after armed conflict. The CAC Forum’s goal of improving protection of the rights of children threatened by armed conflict is achieved through information-sharing between NGOs, individuals, and UN and international coalitions working on these issues as well as through research and capacity-development activities. Children and Armed Conflict is one of the CAC Forum’s five working groups, the others being Peace Operations, Gender and Peacebuilding, Small Arms, and Conflict Prevention.
The site makes available a range of resources organized by theme, many pertaining either directly or indirectly to children’s rights and protection in conflict. It also has annotated links to national and international organizations and initiatives, a calendar of relevant events, including “dialogues” it organizes within the community of practice, and a database of Canadian organizations and individuals active in peacebuilding and their programs.
4. The International Institute for Child Rights and Development (IICRD), based at the University of Victoria in Victoria, Canada, seeks to bring the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child from the level of legislation to policy and community programming that supports vulnerable children locally and internationally. The IICRD advances the realization of children’s rights by accumulating recognized expertise across major children's issues and child rights strategies, by carrying out culturally grounded child rights field-based research, and by convening national and international conferences on child rights issues. The website makes several publications and training manuals available for download.
Children as partners is one of IICRD’s projects that aims to create partnerships between individuals, including children, and organizations that promote children’s participation in matters and decisions that affect them. CAP's long-term goal is to create the conditions in which a true partnership of mutual respect and support can develop between children and adults. The website showcases successful partnerships, and offers a database of knowledge resources, including publications, research, policy/programming tools and links. It is a participatory forum that allows members to post resources easily.
5. The Landon Pearson Centre for the Study of Childhood and Children’s Rights, at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, promotes activities related to children, childhood and communities. The website makes resources and tools available, including international children’s rights instruments, Canada’s national plan of action for children, and links to Canadian and international organizations and resources. The Centre also publishes a bi-annual newsletter, Children & the Hill, which reports on Canadian legislation, programmes and projects and works in progress related to the well being of children in Canada and abroad.
6. The Cape Breton University Children's Rights Centre monitors the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in Canada and conducts research on children's rights and children's issues. The website provides resources, including publications and rights-based curriculum materials, useful links, information on the UN Convention, and poems and games about rights by and for children.
7. International Bureau for Children’s Rights (IBCR) is an international non-governmental organisation (INGO) based in Montreal, Canada, that contributes to the promotion and protection of the rights of the child, as laid out in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, through sharing of knowledge and best practices and through the development of partnerships with those committed to assuring the implementation of rights and dignity for children. The website makes available reports on a variety of themes related to child rights as well as a number of useful thematically organized links.
[edit] International Resources on Child Rights and Protection
1. The Child Rights Information Network (CRIN) is a member-based global network that shares information about child rights, including the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, with NGOs, UN agencies, inter-governmental organisation (IGOs), educational institutions, and other child rights experts, and that supports these organisations in gathering, producing and disseminating child rights information through training, capacity development, and networking tools. CRIN’s over 6000 resources are organized by issue, region, and type of resource. It also has a searchable publications database and news database, a CRINMAIL email-lists, and a list of relevant events. Of particular note is its micro-site on human-rights approaches to working with children, which includes a guide to rights-based programming, key publications, and resources on child-rights themes. Another micro-site, on the UN Study on Violence Against Children, provides access to established and state of the art information on the many aspects of the study, including information about regional activities and children's participation in the study.
2. UNICEF Innocenti Research Centre (IRC) promotes the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child in developing and industrialized countries through research, monitoring, policy analysis, and networking with universities, research institutes, and others. IRC’s work is based on results-based management principles and on a human rights approach that supports UNICEF’s five priorities: young child survival and development, basic education and gender equality, HIV/AIDS and children, child protection from violence, exploitation and abuse, and policy advocacy and partnerships for children’s rights. Its website contains a resources section with a virtual library, a database with a wide range of statistical information on social and economic is¬sues relevant to the welfare of children, young people and women, and useful links to major relevant international and regional websites and databases. The site also includes the publications produced by IRC, information on IRC’s current and past research on emerging thematic areas, including governance, and a press centre.
3. The International Institute for the Rights of the Child (IDE- Institut des Droits de l'Enfant) objective is to share information on the children’s rights, to offer training to those working with children and charged with applying children's rights, and to found a spirit of "child rights." The IDE supports the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child and the principal international instruments related to the rights of the child: penal law (juvenile justice), civil law (international adoption, Convention of the Hague), labour laws (AOIT Convention no.182) and sexual exploitation or children involved in conflict (Additional Protocols of the CRC of 2000).
The website contains a “Doc centre” with a virtual library that can be searched by theme and country, a legislative database, and useful links to libraries and portals, legislations, and others. It offers links to relevant and current international news stories, as well as to civil society organizations working for children’s rights. The IDE also offers training activities and seminars organized at IDE’s initiative or upon request from states, UN agencies (notably UNICEF), or other partners.
