It's time to respect children's rights
Ravi Chandiramani
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
You wait ages for one 20th anniversary, then three come along at once. We've just marked the fall of the Berlin Wall and the 1989 Children Act. And this week it is 20 years since the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child came into existence.
Over the past two decades, children's rights on these shores have acquired wider articulation in policy. Children are now consulted on policies that affect them. England has a children's rights director and the four nations each have a children's commissioner (albeit England's alone lacks the power to take up cases on behalf of children). England itself has one of the most advanced systems of children's rights and advocacy services in the world.
However, beyond the rhetoric and infrastructure, our record on children's rights is poor and in some cases worsening. For example, too many looked-after children still have multiple, short-term placements, and many are denied vital contact with siblings. Children of asylum seekers are taken out of school and detained indefinitely. Children who misbehave are criminalised through Asbos, curfews and naming and shaming campaigns and young people are demonised in the press and lampooned in the wider media. There were hardly any 15-year-olds in custody 20 years ago; now there are hundreds. This is not progress by any measure.
And yet, the concept of children's rights still attracts plenty of ridicule and hostility in wider society, as if you need to become an adult to earn the right to be treated as a human being. Perhaps it is because the language of rights is so abstract. But tangible concerns such as investment in childcare, special needs education and health care are all covered in articles under the UN convention.
This week, the Liberal Democrat peer Baroness Walmsley tables a private members bill for the convention to be incorporated fully in UK law (see p9). The Conservatives meanwhile might need some convincing about the importance of this movement. While an emphasis on children's rights might not be a vote winner, it is worth remembering it was John Major's government that ratified the UN convention in 1991. Moreover, one of the most rights-savvy pieces of legislation, the Children Act 1989, was introduced by a Tory administration.
But above all, the 20th anniversary serves as a wake-up call for all public servants, national and local, to put the needs and welfare of children at the heart of policy and practice.
