Children and Young People Talking about Human Rights
There are numerous videos (as well as podcasts, advice documents and more) on the internet, where children and young people are talking about human rights.
Choose some to view or listen to. You may want to consider questions like:
- Who is the intended audience for the video? What do you know about how the video was made? How might that impact on what the video puts forward, in its content and style? What implications do the answers have for respecting, supporting and fulfilling children’s human rights?
- What rights are addressed in the video – and which ones are not addressed? (You may want to consider the full range of UNCRC articles.)
- According to the video, who is accountable for ensuring1 children’s human rights are met? Is this clearly stated … or not? (Accountability is a key aspect of international human rights.)
Examples of videos are:
ü Children talking about their rights (UNICEF Georgia)
ü What do kids think about human rights? (England)
ü Education for Human Rights … Young People Talking (UNESCO Associated Schools in 10 countries)
To note that the videos are in various languages, some with translated subtitles.
Watching the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child in Action
You can watch and listen to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, in its sessions with States Parties as part of the monitoring of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. These are available live on UN Web TV and the link to the webcast is posted on the session page too, so you can view afterwards.
Pick one of these to view … and have a look at the accompanying documents. States Parties will have already submitted their reports, as well as organizations submitting alternative reports (e.g. Children’s Rights Alliance or Commissioner for Children and Young People).
Consider how effective this process of reporting and discussion seems to be. What issues can you see being ‘tracked through’ by the Committee, through their questions and concluding observations? Child Rights Connect tracks all the sessions, and produces their own summaries – you may want to look at those.
If you could improve the process of monitoring and supporting children’s human rights at an international level, what would you improve and why?
What about in your own context – which may be by country or region, or in your own areas of research or practice. How could the process of monitoring and supporting children’s human rights be improved? You may find it interesting to read about our Theory of Change for implementing children’s rights in Scotland.
Quiz on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child
Click on the link below to test yourself on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Use the dropdown list in the bottom right corner of the Quizlet embed to select 'Flashcards’.
We have tried out this quiz with various groups of policy-makers, practitioners and students as a light way to ensure people have a common grounding on key elements of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. You can try it out yourself individually or do this collectively with others.
For educators, here is a printable resource of the same quiz and additional information about the included questions.
Rights set up entitlements and claims, so that an individual possessing rights can claim their entitlement (see Donnelly and Whelan 2017 for an accessible and more extensive discussion of rights’ relationships with claims and entitlements). A right typically means there is a corresponding duty, which the duty-bearer is obligated to meet. If that claim were not met or the entitlement not respected, this is a special kind of violation and there should be accountability and substantial justification (if a justification were even possible). Rights thus set up strong relationships between the rights-holder and the duty-bearer, composed of claims, entitlement and accountability. (Tisdall et al. 2023, p. 109-110)
.
