Rights of the child: Get behind a good idea – and push

  • May 25, 2016

Every so often an idea or an issue comes along that rational people can agree is worthwhile – clean air and water, for example – but since it carries no inherent sense of urgency there is no rush to do anything about it. So nothing gets done.

Take the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. Everyone can get behind protecting children – Canada was among the first to sign the agreement, which was ratified in 1991. But the ship of state is ponderous, heavy in the water and slow to progress, as evidenced by the following numbers:

  • 25: Years since Convention ratified
  • 350,000 (approximately): Children born in Canada each year
  • 9,375,000 (approximately): Children born since Convention ratified
  • 5 years: Required frequency for progress reports to UN
  • 1998-2007: Period covered by last published report
  • 2012: Concluding observations on that report received from UN
  • 2014: CBA letter to government requesting action on those observations
  • Pending: Canada’s response to UN observations

In May, CBA President Janet Fuhrer wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pointing out that the government has had more than three years to study the UN’s observations and to act upon them.

“As Canada prepares to submit its fifth report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, the CBA suggests this is the time to reclaim Canada’s leadership in the area of promoting children’s rights,” she wrote. “Canadians have welcomed your government’s early and strong commitments to advancing children’s rights.”

Part of that commitment came in the mandate letter for the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development; another part with Canada’s recent adoption of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People.

But that commitment plays against a backdrop of a country that a human rights tribunal found in January fails to provide the same levels of child welfare to First Nations children on reserves as elsewhere;  and a G-7 nation where one out of every seven children lives in poverty.

The concluding observations recommend, among others, that Canada establish a federal framework for implementing the Convention, set up a budgeting process across provincial, territorial and national levels of government which take into account children’s needs, and establish a federal ombud for children. In fact, the 2012 observations refer back to comments made about Canada’s previous report, noting many actions that remain to be taken:

The Committee urges the State party to take all necessary measures to address those recommendations from the concluding observations of the second periodic report under the Convention that have not been implemented or sufficiently implemented, particularly those related to reservations, legislation, coordination, data collection, independent monitoring, non-discrimination, corporal punishment, family environment, adoption, economic exploitation, and administration of juvenile justice.

The CBA’s Children’s Law Committee is in the process of preparing a Children’s Rights Toolkit to be published later this year to mark the 25th anniversary of the ratification of the Convention, as even many lawyers in family law practice are unclear on the rights of children.

Fuhrer asks the government to “create a detailed action plan to effectively implement the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child.” The UN’s concluding observations provide a road map, she says, and CBA members are ready to offer their assistance.

Children born when the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child was ratified are young adults who may already have children of their own. A generation later, the need to make some progress on this file should be something we can all agree on.

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