Children's rights are powerful tools for improving young lives
Anna Feuchtwang
Monday, July 6, 2015
The voluntary sector's attitude to rights is ambivalent. When we appeal to the public, make our case to funders or seek to influence policy makers, we tend to emphasise children's needs and the services that we offer rather than talking about children's rights. In private, despite our own stated beliefs, we conclude that rights language is toxic - a turn-off to our supporters and politically unpopular.
In practice, even those of us who refer to rights in our mission statements struggle to make the link between the high-level international legal rights frameworks and improvements in the lives of children in this country. But with the threat that the UK might abandon the European Convention on Human Rights and the UK's fifth periodic review against the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) due later this year, we should all be paying closer attention to the opportunities presented by human rights legislation and the perils of losing them.
The UK was at the forefront of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 and an early signatory of the UNCRC. We also have a rich history of the voluntary sector holding government to account against the rights frameworks. To this end, the Children's Rights Alliance for England is co-ordinating a voluntary sector response to the UK government's report to the UN submitted in May last year.
The government's report showed some good progress, including improvements to educational attainment, reductions in infant mortality, fewer under-18 pregnancies and reductions in the number of children in custody. It also showed where children's lives have got worse - in particular the inequality gap that is having a lasting impact on young people's lives.
One of the areas NCB is most concerned about is health inequality. Childhood mortality may be going down, but we are still among the worst performing wealthy nations and the rates are decreasing too slowly. Of all children, those from poorer backgrounds are more likely to die in childhood. For one of the richest countries in the world, the fact that 2.3 million children are living in poverty is inexcusable. And with deepening austerity including further cuts expected to vital benefits such as tax credits, existing health inequalities are likely to worsen. As a leading expert on child mortality, Dr Ingrid Wolfe has said "social and economic inequalities are matters of life and death for children".
There are significant regional variations in health reflecting levels of poverty and disadvantage. Looked-after children, migrant children and children in custody are more likely to suffer from poor health outcomes and face barriers to accessing services.
The commitment to improve mental health services for adults and children made by the previous coalition government has been carried forward by the new administration. After years of neglect, this commitment must include adequate resourcing to improve access and quality. Equally, the SEND reforms, if implemented effectively, have the potential to improve access and experiences of care for children with special educational needs and disabilities.
The UNCRC refers to all these areas of health. They are rights to which all children are entitled whatever their circumstances. As signatories to the UNCRC, the government has committed to delivering these rights, not as optional services if the budget can afford it, but as a minimum. Article 24 confers "the right of the child to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health and to facilities for the treatment of illness and rehabilitation of health", and a requirement that "no child is deprived of his or her right of access to such health care services".
The UNCRC also places emphasis on the rights of children with disabilities. Article 23 refers to the right of the disabled child to special care, and the UNCRC has said it expects children to receive care as close to home as possible. We should be using this to keep pressure on local commissioners and leaders to ensure that children with learning disabilities can access early intervention services locally, rather than being placed at in-patient settings far from home.
It is important that we use opportunities presented at home to promote a rights-based approach. At NCB, we are working on making the rights to health contained in the NHS Constitution accessible and relevant to young people. Following research with those who most often use health and social care services, we found that children and young people were often unaware of their rights and concerned that they were not being supported to demand the best from their experiences within the health system.
We should congratulate and encourage the government when it gets things right in terms of improvements to children's lives. We need to be equally vocal though, and provide children with the opportunity to speak out, when we believe their rights are not being met. The UNCRC and other human rights legislation gives us the tools to do so.
Find out more about NCB's work on the NHS Constitution at www.councilfordisabledchildren.org.uk/nhsconstitution.
Anna Feuchtwang is chief executive of the National Children's Bureau