Children’s rights
Every child and young person has rights, no matter who they are or where they live. Nearly every government in the world has promised to protect, respect and fulfil these rights, yet they are still violated worldwide.
Children’s rights are enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), an international statement on the rights of children. It's based on the world’s first declaration on children’s rights, written by our founder Eglantyne Jebb in 1923.
What does the UNCRC include?
- personal rights, such as the right to a name and a nationality and freedom of thought
- access to services, such as clean water and food, education and state support for a child’s family
- protection from exploitation, violence, neglect and abuse.
Find out more about the UNCRC.
Children’s rights are often ignored
Governments rarely prioritise children, and fail to recognise that they have rights.
We protect children’s rights by:
- helping to establish mechanisms and structures which will promote and protect children’s rights, such as children’s ombudsmen and independent human rights institutions; these structures also help empower children to advocate for the promotion and realisation of their rights
- assisting children and young people to make sure their views are heard by decision makers
- measuring governments’ compliance with international law through our own analysis
- campaigning to get childrens’ rights principles and standards included in laws and policies
- supporting our programmes to use existing mechanisms and structures (such as the African Committee on the Rights and Welfare of the Child, and the European Convention on Human Rights) to promote and protect children’s rights
- developing strategies to promote children’s rights with donors and agencies
- carrying out strategic litigation on children’s rights issues.
Celebrating the 20th anniversary of the UNCRC
Save the Children has collaborated with EveryChild, an international development charity supporting children and Ice and Fire, a theatre company that explores human rights through performance, to stage a new play based on the real testimonies of vulnerable children from around the world.
20 years on from the adoption of the UNCRC, Listen to Me tells stories of children living on the streets, fleeing conflict, trapped in bonded labour and growing up in abusive households, and will ask why we are still failing children.
The play was performed at the Unicorn, London’s pioneering youth theatre, on 16 November 2009.
To commemorate the 20th anniversary Save the Children is calling upon all governments to recommit to the UNCRC by focusing on three very important areas:
- Legislation - ensure that all legislation is in full compliance with the UNCRC
- Resources - Increase government spending on children and ensure that the resources are being used effectively
- Monitoring - establish independent ombudsmen for the protection and promotion of child rights in every country and an international complaints procedure for the UNCRC
Save the Children encourages you to work with child rights coalitions in your country and to send this letter (word doc 192 KB) jointly with other organisations, if appropriate. Please also feel free to adapt this letter as needed for your country. Save the Children believes in the transformative power of the UNCRC — but it needs to be further implemented and continuously monitored, to ensure children’s rights become children’s realities.
- Read the script (PDF 213kb) of the play.
- Policy Briefing - making children's rights a reality.
- Learn more about the UNCRC with our CD-Rom training kit for trainers working with development workers, children and others.
