A rights-based strategy for children and young people

Nathalie Strain of the Children’s Law Centre has concerns about the ability of the new government strategy to deliver rights for children and young people and hopes that it will develop into action plans more robust in safeguarding those rights.

Five years after the Northern Ireland Executive’s welcome announcement of its intention to develop a ten year Children’s Strategy for Northern Ireland, June 2006 brought the launch of the long awaited, ‘Our Children and Young People – Our Pledge’. The Children’s Law Centre has been heavily involved in the development of the strategy in an effort to ensure that it would deliver and safeguard the rights of all children and young people in Northern Ireland.

Unfortunately, the commitment made by government that the Children’s Strategy would be the implementation plan for the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), for 'a basic set of non-negotiable and legally binding minimum standards and obligations in respect of all aspects of children’s lives which the government has signed up to', has not been met. Despite extensive consultation with numerous stakeholders, the strategy framework is not rights based and is very similar to the ‘Every Child Matters’ framework currently in operation in England and Wales. It has one additional outcome – living in a society which protects children’s rights. We very much support the inclusion of this additional rights outcome, but feel that it is not robust enough to equate to a rights basis or to ensure that the rights of all children and young people in Northern Ireland are upheld.

Following the launch of the strategy, we await the publication of each government department’s action plan which will indicate what each department will do to contribute to the achievement of the strategy outcomes. We have some idea of what the action plans will include as there are examples of possible indicators and drivers for change attached to each outcome in the strategy, indicating what is required to achieve each outcome. We are very concerned in that the rights outcome in the strategy has no such indicators or drivers for change attached which undermines the stated commitment to children’s rights.

The research carried out by the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People in 2004, ‘Children’s Rights in Northern Ireland’ clearly illustrated the broad spectrum of flagrant breaches of children’s rights which occur on a daily basis. The Children’s Strategy should be addressing these breaches and have a rights based framework which demands that all legislation and policy is child rights proofed against the UNCRC to ensure government compliance with its international obligations.

This does not appear to be the intention of the strategy, particularly given the fact that one piece of named legislation in the strategy is the replication of Section 58 of the Children Act 2004 which retains the defence of reasonable chastisement where a child is physically punished by a parent. This runs completely contrary to the UNCRC and the UNCRC Committee’s recommendation to the UK government that a complete ban on physical punishment should be implemented.

The Children’s Law Centre remains committed to a society where all children in Northern Ireland can access their rights and have them upheld by government. We will continue to work with government on the development of the strategy to ensure that the departmental action plans have actions, child rights indicators and drivers for change for the strategy outcomes, including, ‘living in a society which respects children’s rights’. We urge all departments to engage in meaningful and comprehensive consultation on their action plans in compliance with section 75 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998, which includes direct consultation with children and young people. We look forward to taking the next phase of the strategy forward with government, partner NGOs and children and young people themselves. We are confident that a strategy with a child rights base, associated actions and indicators will make a huge difference to the lives of all children and young people and we will continue to work with government to ensure that this is delivered.