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    The Convention on the Rights of the Child
    The Convention on the Rights of the Child
    The Convention on the Rights of the Child
    Ebook103 pages6 hours

    The Convention on the Rights of the Child

    By Department of Global Communications

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    Thirty years ago, world leaders made a historic commitment to the world’s children by adopting the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. This Convention, one of the core human rights instruments, has become the most widely ratified human rights treaty in history and has helped transform children’s lives around the world. But still not every child gets to enjoy a full childhood. Still, too many childhoods are cut short. It is up to our generation to demand that governments, businesses and communities fulfil their commitments and take action for child rights now, once and for all. They must commit to making sure every child, has every right. This book is published to commemorate this momentous anniversary.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherUnited Nations
    Release dateNov 20, 2019
    ISBN9789213582916
    The Convention on the Rights of the Child

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      Book preview

      The Convention on the Rights of the Child - Department of Global Communications

      The Convention on the Rights of the Child

      A photo shows children from all continents standing and holding the flag of their country.

      UN Photo / Paulo Filgueiras

      Overview

      Children are the greatest treasure of humankind.

      Children need special protection.

      Children have rights.

      The Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) is one of the core international human rights instruments. It aims to promote and protect the rights of children all around the world. It defines a child as a human being under the age of 18.

      The United Nations General Assembly adopted the CRC and opened it for signature on 20 November 1989. The treaty entered into force on 2 September 1990. It has been ratified by 196 countries and territories, making it the most widely ratified human rights treaty in the world. All Member States of the United Nations, except the United States, have ratified the Convention.

      The CRC calls on all States Parties (meaning the countries that have ratified the treaty) to take every appropriate measure to ensure that the rights of all boys and girls, whether civil, cultural, economic, political or social, wherever they happen to live, are promoted, protected, respected and enforced at every level within their respective jurisdictions and societies.

      The CRC includes such fundamental and inalienable human rights as that to life, have a name and a citizenship; freedom of speech and thought; access to healthcare, education and leisure, and freedom from exploitation, unlawful detention, torture, abuse and neglect. The overarching concern of the CRC is that everything must always be undertaken to promote and protect what is in the best interest of the child in all circumstances. It affirms that all children need to live in an atmosphere of happiness, love and understanding.

      Nascence and historical evolution

      Throughout history, children have always required special protection as the most vulnerable members of the community. However, it is not until the twentieth century that a movement to specifically address the rights of the most vulnerable among us became clearly nascent.

      In 1924, the League of Nations, the precursor organization to the United Nations, adopted what became known as the Geneva Declaration on the Rights of the Child, a historic document that recognized and affirmed for the first time the existence of rights specific to children and the responsibility of adults towards them.

      Years later, in the wake of the Second World War, which had wreaked devastation and sorrow upon humanity and particularly millions of children, the world moved to proclaim the advancement of human rights in a series of proclamations of universal potency.

      On 26 June 1945, the Charter of the United Nations, the foundational treaty of the Organization, proclaimed in its preamble that one of its central aims was:

      (…) to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small

      In 1946, the United Nations General Assembly established the International Children’s Emergency Fund, UNICEF, for the purpose of advancing the cause of children throughout the world.

      Two years later, taking a further step, the Member States of the United Nations universally and collectively recognized the rights of children in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1948.

      Article 25 of the UDHR states that:

      Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection

      Another step was taken in 1959 when the Member States of the United Nations further enunciated children’s rights by unanimously adopting the Declaration on the Rights of the Child, which built upon the 1924 Geneva Declaration. The 1959 Declaration, which incorporates language from the UDHR, consolidated ten fundamental principles:

      The right to equality, without distinction on account of race, religion or national origin.

      The right to special protection for the child’s physical, mental and social development.

      The right to a name and a nationality.

      The right to adequate nutrition, housing and medical services.

      The right to special education and treatment when a child is physically or mentally handicapped.

      The right to understanding and love by parents and society.

      The right to recreational activities and free education.

      The right to be among the first to receive relief in all circumstances.

      The right to protection against all forms of neglect, cruelty and exploitation.

      The right to be brought up in a spirit of understanding, tolerance, friendship among peoples, and universal brotherhood.

      By the mid-1960s, the international community also acknowledged the special rights of children in the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which were both adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 16 December 1966. Both the ICCPR and the ICESCR entered into force in 1976.

      Article 10.3 of the ICESCR states that:

      Special measures of protection and assistance should be taken on behalf of all children and young persons without any discrimination for reasons of parentage or other conditions. Children and young persons should be protected from economic and social exploitation. Their employment in work harmful to their morals or health or dangerous to life or likely to hamper their normal development should be punishable by law. States should also set age limits below which the paid employment of child labour should be prohibited and punishable by law.

      Article 24 of the ICCPR states that:

      Every child shall have, without any discrimination as to race, colour, sex, language, religion, national or social origin, property or birth, the right to such measures of protection as are required by his status as a minor, on the part of his family, society and the State.

      Several milestones were

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