UN Convention on the Rights of the Child

• Right to life, survival and development;
• Right to non-discrimination;
• Right to express views freely;
• Right to have a child’s best interests taken as a primary consideration in all matters affecting them.

• Right to a name and nationality
• Freedom of expression
• Freedom of thought and association
• Access to information
• Right not to be tortured or ill-treated

• protection from violence, abuse and neglect
• abolishing traditional practices prejudicial to the health of children 
• school discipline 
• protection from all forms of sexual exploitation
• protection from inhuman or degrading treatment 
• recovery from trauma and reintegration

• Right to live with and have contact with both parents
• Right to be reunited with parents if separated from them
• Right to appropriate alternative care where necessary

• Rights of disabled children
• Right to health and health care
• Right to social security
• Right to child care services
• Right to an adequate standard of living

• Right to education
• Right to play
• Right to leisure and to participate in cultural life and the arts

• Rights of refugee children
• Rights of children affected by armed conflicts
• Rights of children in the juvenile justice system
• Rights of children deprived of their liberty
• Rights of children suffering exploitation

Every five years, the Committee makes recommendations to countries telling them what they can do to improve the protection of children’s human rights.

These recommendations are called Concluding Observations.

Find out more about the Concluding Observations for the United Kingdom here.

The Committee creates guidance setting out what UNCRC rights mean in more detail. 

The guidance documents are called General Comments.

Find out more about the Committee’s General Comments here.

The Committee can hear complaints from individual children who think their rights have been breached.

Children can only do this if their Government has signed up to the “individual complaints mechanism”. The Scottish and UK Governments have not done this yet. 

Find out more about the individual complaints mechanism here.