News Release

UN Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a vital tool for child protection

Peer-Reviewed Publication

The Lancet_DELETED

The vital role of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) in child protection is discussed in the final paper of The Lancet Series on Child Maltreatment, written by Dr Richard Reading, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK and colleagues.

In medical literature, child maltreatment is considered as a public-health problem or an issue of harm to individual children, but less frequently as a violation of children's human rights. Ambivalence in the public and professional responses to child maltreatment indicates the status of children in society. Child maltreatment is both a human-rights violation and a public-health problem, and incurs huge costs for society. The UNCRC, initiated in 1989 obtains its power to influence policy and enforce accountability by being a legal instrument rather than a moral code, although it is based on moral foundations.

The paper looks at how child maltreatment is not just about victims and perpetrators, but also issues such as institutional failings, harmful policies and laws, avoidable war, failure of government, and social disruption. Poverty and discrimination are also key issues. The authors say: "In the UK until recently, laws to discourage asylum seeking and force those denied asylum to leave included withholding basic benefits and services from their children. Meanwhile in the USA, the marginalisation of Latino families and the disproportionate effect of welfare policy has resulted in their children being more likely to live in poverty, being over-represented in the child-protection system, and receiving fewer services. So in the UK and the USA at least, the situation for some children seems to have worsened... The UK has been consistently criticised by the UNCRC committee for the magnitude of health and education inequalities among children, and the failure to commit an adequate share of its resources to children despite the government commitment to end child poverty."

The authors do however compliment the UK for incorporating more children's rights into successive Children's Acts since 1989 (the year of inception of UNCRC). Similar praise is given to Nordic countries — despite a low key legislative approach, these nations have a long tradition of promotion of children's welfare and high levels of child wellbeing.

As well as protection from maltreatment, UNCRC gives children the right to: better epidemiological monitoring, effective preventive measures, effective therapy, be involved in decisions and policy, and a standard of living adequate for physical, mental, spiritual, moral and social development. The authors say: "A direct example why children need to be able to contribute to their own protection is the death of Victoria Climbié in the UK, which might have been prevented had she had access to an interpreter."

The example of Sweden's outlawing of corporal punishment is discussed, and how campaigns to change public attitudes to violence against children have had positive effects. The success of the Swedish model is such that UNCRC is known by and often talked about by children.

The strength of a rights-based approach is that human rights are legal obligations that underpin mechanisms to hold governments accountable. Use of the UNCRC in this way would result in a more effective public-health response to child maltreatment. The authors say: "For example, the concluding observations of the UN committee on the rights of the child criticised performance of the UK Government on children in the penal system, irregular migrants, and health and educational inequalities... This process of scrutiny and accountability might have been the reason for the decision of the UK Government to grant full rights to all migrant children and to those in custody."

The authors conclude: "The unique strength of a rights-based approach is the legal status of rights conventions, and thus the accountability and transparency this facilitates... Adoption of the framework of the UNCRC is the basis for making further progress against child maltreatment in the 21st century."

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Dr Richard Reading, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK T) +44 (0) 1603 287624 / +44 (0) 1603 289930 / +44 (0) 7749 252418 E) r.reading@uea.ac.uk / richard.reading@nnuh.nhs.uk

Simon Dunford, University of East Anglia Press Office, T) +44 (0)1603 592203 E) s.dunford@uea.ac.uk

Full paper: http://press.thelancet.com/childmaltreatment4.pdf


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