Children's rights have been at the cornerstone of the participation agenda for the past thirty years. In this section Participation Works will overview children's human rights and their relevance to participation in decision making.
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is an international human rights treaty that applies to all children and young people aged 17 and under. Agreed by the UN in 1989 it gives children and young people a set of comprehensive set of social, economic, cultural, civil and political rights, including specific rights to guarantee children's participation in matters affecting them. By 1997, every country in the world, except the USA and Somalia, had ratified the CRC, making it one of the worlds most widely and most quickly ratified human rights instrument's.
The UK Government agreed to implement the convention in 1991. In doing so the UK has pledged to try and make the rights a reality for all children in the UK. In England the Department for Children, Schools and Families (DCSF) is responsible for making sure the convention is being implemented. Rt Hon Dawn Primarolo MP, Minister of State for Children, Young People and Families, has ministerial responsibility for children’s views and the DCSF Children and Youth Board. Baroness Delyth Morgan, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Children, Young People and Families has ministerial responsibility for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
Other international treaties give children specific rights, including to express themselves. The European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) is incorporated into domestic law through the Human Rights Act 1998. It enables citizens of the UK including children and young people to seek to protect their ECHR rights through domestic courts. In addition, they can still seek protection through the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France.
