Article 23: The Rights of Children with Disabilities

Abstract‘Existence of laws such as anti-discrimination law would protect children with disabilities from discrimination. Some children with disabilities have been abused by other people.’ (Asia-Pacific)

Article 17: The Right to Access to Diverse Sources of Information

Abstract‘Informing students of reliable sources/websites; and how to critique news.’ (Western Europe/Other)

Article 4: States Parties’ Obligations

Article 4 deals with the nature of the States Parties’ obligations and it therefore relates ‘to all the substantive articles of the Convention’ (Rishmawi, 2006, pp. 22, 57). Together with Articles 42 and 44(6), it comprises the heading ‘General Measures of Implementation’ in the States Parties’ periodic reports (Hodgkin et al., 2007, p. 47; Rishmawi, 2006, p. 22; UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, 1991, paras. 9–11, 1996, paras. 11–24, 2002a, p. 58, 2015, paras. 18–21).

Article 24: The Right to Health

Article 24 reflects the perspective of the drafters that the right to health cannot be understood in narrow bio-medical terms or limited to the delivery of health services. Rather, in its reference, for example, to food, water, sanitation, and environmental dangers, it recognises the wider social and economic factors that influence and impact on the child’s state of health. Thus, the text of Article 24 sets out: a broad right to health for all children combined with a right of access to health services a priority focus on measures to address infant and child mortality, the provision of primary health care, nutritious food and clean drinking water, pre-natal and post-natal care, and preventive health care, including family planning the need for effective measures to abolish traditional practices harmful to children’s health a specific obligation on States Parties to cooperate internationally towards the realisation of the child’s right to health everywhere, having particular regard to the needs of developing countries. The right to health is a prime example of the interelatedness of child rights as it is contingent upon and informed by the realization of so many other rights guaranteed to children under the convention. This chapter analyses the child’s right to health in relation to four essential attributes. The first attribute of the child’s right to the highest attainable standard of health emphasizes what an exacting standard this human rights norm contains. Taking a social determinants of health perspective the right entails not just access to health services but programmatic supports in sanitation, transportation, education and other fields to guarantee the enjoyment of health. The second attribute focuses on the Basic minimum criteria of the right to health as reflected in Article 24(2). A third attribute is the insistence upon child health accountability mechanisms using the Availability, Accessibility, Acceptability and Quality Accountability Framework. Finally, given the wide discrepancies in enjoyment of children’s right to health across the globe, a fourth attribute focuses upon international cooperation to ensure equal access to the right to health.

Article 1: Definition of a Child

While all international human rights treaties apply to children, only the Convention explicitly elaborates who is defined as a child. Article 1 defines the child as a human being who is below the age of 18 years. Majority is set at age 18 unless, under domestic law, it is attained earlier. During the negotiations of the text of the Convention, there was significant debate regarding definitions of both the commencement and the ending of childhood. The initial text, proposed by the Polish Government, drawing on Principle 1 of the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child, 1959, provided no definition of childhood at all (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, p. 301). However, government delegates on the Working Group immediately highlighted the need for clarification. The first revision of the text therefore proposed that a child is a human being from birth to the age of 18 years unless majority is attained earlier. However, with regard to the beginning of childhood, the Working Group were unable to come to a consensus. An unresolvable division persisted on whether childhood, in respect of the Convention, commenced from the point of conception, or from birth (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights and Rädda barnen (Society: Sweden), 2007, pp. 301–313). The conflict was ultimately resolved by removing any reference to the start of childhood.

Article 8: The Right to Preservation of Identity

It’s important that the government does not make the process to get the documents too complicated. (Western Europe/Other).

Article 33: The Right to Protection from Illicit Use of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances

Schools have courses for students and communities to understand well the consequences of harmful drug and know how to deal with the activities of drug trading. (Asia-Pacific)

Introduction

This publication is one of the outcomes of over a decade of work, under the auspices of the United Nations Committee on the Rights of the Child, to explore how to monitor and evaluate States Parties’ compliance with the obligations they undertook when they ratified the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (the Convention). A full account of the project work to date has been provided in Vaghri, Krappmann, and Doek’s article ‘From the Indicators of General Comment No. 7 to GlobalChild’ (2019). Grounded in that foundational work, this book relies on that project work to provide a conceptual framing of the Convention, through the identification of the attributes of each right that provides the basis for the development of indicators against which to measure progress.

Article 36: The Right to Protection from Other Forms of Exploitation

Abstract‘There should be awareness raising and campaigns through different mediums such as radio, TV, newspapers, forums and blogging on trafficking, abductions, child labour, child marriage and all forms of violation and discrimination against children and youths.’ (Africa).

Article 22: The Right to Protection for Refugee and Asylum-Seeking Children

Article 22 guarantees the substantive application of all Convention rights to the particular situation of asylum seeking and refugee children, and also guarantees them protection and assistance in advancing their immigration and residency status claims and in overcoming the hurdles posed by international migration channels, including guarantees of due process. The rights of refugee and asylum-seeking children can be analyzed in relation to four essential attributes. First of all, Article 22 insists upon appropriate protection and humanitarian assistance. Refugee children are not granted a special status under the Convention, but they are not given any lesser status. They are to be treated as children first and foremost and not as migrants per se, in the sense that national immigration policy cannot trump child rights. The basic rights to education, health, and child welfare of these children needs to be protected to the same extent, and as much as possible, as children who are nationals of the host country. The second attribute preserves the rights of refugee children not only under the Convention but under all other international human right treaties and humanitarian instruments binding on the relevant States Party. These may include, for many governments, the 1951 Refugee Convention, the Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, the Geneva Conventions and the Hague Convention for the Protection of Minors, 1961, among others. A third attribute of Article 22 insists upon the duty to protect and assist refugee children. This entails a clear duty to provide children with appropriate due process rights throughout their asylum and refugee claims procedures, including the child’s right to be heard and participate in all the processes determining the child’s residence or immigration status, border admission, deportation, repatriation, detention, alternative measures, or placement, including best interest determination processes. The fourth and final attribute of Article 22 asserts that two basic principles should guide each activity with the refugee child: the best interests of the child and the principle of family unity.